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anage
ment of December's events by the mass media. It can be
said though, that the range of comments extends throughout
the political spectrum-inside and outside the political cor
rectness of the parliament. 1 Every attempt at assembling
December's events through the image-even the "friendli
est" one-embraced by the media's logic of consumption,
becomes suspect as a result, since the sign at stake-named
in a holistic way as "outbreak"-is manipulated with certain
contents which were not previously subj ect to that logic. That
happens because of the turning of the events into up-to-the
minute daily news that corresponds to the technical essence
of the media, that is the disarticulation of the real into suc
cessive and equivalent signs, and their combined modulation
with other ones. This is evidenced in daily newS reports such
as: "the economic policy of the Minister of Finance, " "the
problematic state of Exarchia, " " the state of alert of the Min
istry of Domestic Afairs, ""the limits of police violence,""the
change of political attitude," "the maj or issue of European
integration, " and "the common question of global democratic
governance."
What is shared then, between media's portrayed images
and the emotionally stressed eyes of the viewers, is a corpus
of signs and references based upon the camera's representa
tion and the state, legal, and political reformulation of the
embodied lived experience of the riot's participants. In this
corpus of signs, the intractable materiality of "youth, " " anar
chist, " "masked face, " "foreigner, " "unscrupulous vandal," is
The well-known national satiric comedian Lazopoulos, said dur
ing his most popular TV program: "I would recommend to these kids to
destroy everything, do not sober up!"
shifted from the dark and imponderable body of the street,
towards politically familiar, ideology- bound platforms from
which the question of the "outbreak" and its virtual answers
can be addressed. Thereby, mass communication excludes the
corporeal experience of the polyphonic event of the riot, while
at the same time it creates a common ground from which a
compromise can be made among all the eyes staring at the
dramatic images, toward the same ambiguous demand of this
"outbreak"; namely a change to a more humane social world.
Therefore, the reading of the new contents by the virtual col
lective of all those driven by the same ambiguous exigency
sacralize "outbreak" as something profane that needs purif
cation through an eligible "answer."
This "answer" though is not articulated, yet is always at
stake in every efort for defning, commenting, and situating
December's events by the mass media. This rephrasing of
the "outbreak" with its presaged answer implicitly provides
a reassuring social narrative (which at the same time ascribes
blame) : that "modernization of the State" and "just democrat
ic governance" entails the progressive withdrawal of violence
from everyday life. What is really at stake then, in the mass
media's discourse about December's events, is not Alexandros
Grigoropoulos's death by the armed hand of the police and
the riots triggered off by this death, but the capability of the
State to handle this domestic crisis.
A month of continuing reports and live broadcasts is
encapsulated in three stances that, after a year, makes Greek
Obedience stopped, life is magical
political life conform to the universalized rational norm of its
parliamentary spectrum. The frst concerns the criticism by
the main opposition party, the Socialists, against the govern
ment that is "incapable of protecting the citizens," the sec
ond is the attack on the small party of the progressive Left
(SYRIZA) by the liberal, the Communist, and the right-wing
parties, because of its "unwillingness to confne its political
range within parliamentary legitimacy." As for the third one, it
involves all the parties and it is the commitment to terminat
ing domestic terrorist political movements. Mass media say
that December's "outbreak" changed a lot of things in the
political life of this country. I believe that these stances are
the legacy of the power of images in the collective thinking of
the Greek citizen-viewers.
The Greeks' involvement in December via the image
and discourse of the media indicates their consent in the de
ciphering of the media's message. And if "the medium is the
message, " then this deciphering is not about the "outbreak"
but about the media themselves. That is, the viewer is being
unconsciously called upon to decipher the deep discursivity
of the media-the realist representation of the camera with
its applied obj ectivism-before and beyond December's
events. Thus, mass media's image incarnates December's
riots while evading their embodied character, and re- writes
them through an evenly up-to-the-minute agenda for collec
tive reception. And as these riots are sacralized by the viewers
for being the "outbreak" of a social and economic privation
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We are an Image from the Future
that troubles Greek society for many years now, they are sac
rifced all the same when one attempts to fnd an answer in
their actualization.
The new neighborhood assembl ies
Mi: An anarchist of Exarchia
I t is very early to draw conclusions about the messages and
the lessons that we learned through the insurrection of De
cember. Maybe it will take months or even years to understand
what we did because we're still in the heat of the moment. One
characteristic of December was the occupation of government
buildings, municipality buildings, universities, and municipal
cultural centers. The goal of all these actions was to organize
the participation of the inhabitants and local people in the
center of the different cities and also in the suburbs. In the
city centers and in the universities, the occupations arose
from political actors, from the libertarians or anarchists or
autonomists, and also ultra-left movements, and inside these
occupations the majority of parti cipants were alread politi
cally conscious. On the other hand the vast majority of people
who participated in the occupations in the suburbs were local
people who hadn't been active before. Even though there were
also politically conscious comrades there, the great majority of
the participants were people who appeared in the movement
for their frst time. All these assemblies in the suburbs used
the name, "Open Assembly of the Inhabitants of" whatever
area, or "popular assembly." Because parthenogenesis does
not exist, many of these assemblies arose from campaigns and
meetings and struggles around specifc local themes that pre
dated December.
The second important characteristic of these assemblies
is that for the frst time struggles that started in the center
of Athens-like the response to the assassination of Alexis
or the attack on Kuneva, or the solidarity with the prison
ers, or general talks that took place during the insurrection
in the occupation of the Polytechnic or Nomiki or ASOEE
or the General Confederation of Greek Workers building
became subj ects for discussion and struggle in the assemblies
and neighborhoods all around Greece. The central point of
these assemblies was no longer a local problem, but a general
subj ect that connected all these assemblies all throughout
Greece. And this was apparent in a slogan that you could fnd
in all the different assemblies, "Let's take life back into our
hands."This means that we have to carry out a global struggle
that includes all the different sides and activities of life.
In many areas of Greece where popular assemblies had
never existed, new ones appeared for the frst time, possibly
started by neighbors who knew each other. To get a good pic
ture of these assemblies, imagine that during December and
the beginning of January, between 1 50-500 people in each
neighborhood were taking part. And they organized many
different demonstrations for Alexis, for Kuneva, for the pris
oners, they printed many different posters and pamphlets,
Obedience stopped, life is magical
and also organized concerts and attacks on police stations or
other local targets.
In the neighborhood assemblies people always prefer to
talk and debate for hours and even days, sometimes to even
avoid making a fnal decision at all, in order to seek consen
sus and avoid stooping to holding a vote. Sometimes this is
chaotic, sometimes it is a lengthy procedure, but it allows ev
eryone to express his or her own opinion and to fnd a place
within the general spirit. Another important characteristic is
how the general assemblies functioned as welcome centers
where you could fnd announcements and calls for help for all
the different initiatives that appeared inside the assembly. The
initiatives were not created by fnal decisions coming from the
assembly, but rather they were the initiatives of members that
were accommodated by the general assembly. There were no
decisions about what would happen and what wouldn't. All of
it was happening. Thus, these assemblies allowed important
anarchist principles such as consensus and the empowerment
of individual initiative to pass to people who were not anar
chis
t
s but adopted the practices and theories and principles
of the anarchist movement.
There were other actions that had previously been un
heard of. The refusal to pay for public transportation and at
tacks on the ticket machines, the occupation of the Opera Hall
that worked as a meeting point between the artists and the
society, and gave the artists the chance to express their new
ideas developed during the insurrection. To even mention
We are an I mage from the Future
all the actions that took place you would need a catalog of
the hundreds of blogs created during the insurrection by all
these different assemblies and initiatives. These blogs were
very important instruments for visibility and direct public
announcements. There was no need anymore for any kind of
mediation or intermediary, in the form of the media. And all
of the groups produced thousands of posters and pamphlets
that created direct public dialog in the streets.
Another important initiative that started after December
was the Assembly for Health. It is an assembly constituted by
workers in the health sector, including doctors, pharmacists,
and nurses. This assembly tries to expose the great problems
of health care as a social problem and not a medical problem.
To break the barriers between the specialists and the laymen,
the doctors and the patients. The frst actions of this assembly
took place in two huge public hospitals where the members
occupied the lobby, liberating it and giving everyone a chance
to have free health care for fve hours. The idea behind these
actions was to announce to all society that health is a social
gift and that it is i rrational to expect people to pa for health
care.
It is also important to mention the assembly for solidar
ity with Kuneva. It gathered a large number of people who
participated in the insurrection. With demos, occupations of
state buildings, and the smashing of private cleaning com
panies. And the arson attack on the metro station of Kifssia,
one of the richest areas of Athens, that caused 1 2 million
euros in damage.
In the suburbs, after the occupations of all these mu
nicipality buildings and cultural centers and central buildings
ended, the assemblies have continued to exist though they no
longer have a central building as a reference point and they
don't gather such a large number of people. But in three dif
ferent suburbs, Petralona, Nea Filadelfa, and Brachami, they
now have permanent occupations for the assemblies. The
health workers' assembly participates in the occupied building
in Petralona. A new horizon has opened up in terms of build
ing anarchist social struggles as they try to create solutions
for health as a social problem, and to offer free health care to
the people of the neighborhood. And meanwhile the already
existing social centers and squats have been empowered, and
host intense activity every day.
These assemblies that we mention here, and all that
we have left out, created an entire galaxy of actions, attacks,
protests, confrontations, pamphlets, campaigns, posters,
and critiques. All this appeared after the assassination of a
ffteen-year- old boy but it spreads its light across the planet
by creating itself, creating new people, new comrades, new
actions, new visions, new practices, and the future of the
movement itself.
Ki l l the Sexi st I n Your Head-the menses
fl ow
A communique released by an Athens anti -sexist
group
During the insurrection, the slogan "Cops, cunts, you kill chil
dren" was often shouted. One of the times when we reacted,
one of the "insurgents," to our disgust, said: "Learn to shut
up. And if you do not know how, we will make you shut up."
We didn't shut up, though.
It was not enough for us that already:
Capital exploits our bodies. In employment, in the unpaid
work between the four walls of our homes, in entertainment
(for others) .
The nuclear Greek family wants us as housewives and rab
bits, intending for our bodies, even within our own personal
space, to reproduce: "the future of this country."
We have to put up with the motherfuckers, the bosses at
home and at work, and their culture of hunter and prey, their
pick-ups and propositioning, their whispers and their harass
ment i n the street and on the buses.
A11 manner of liberal experts reassure us that "equality" has
been achieved. Of course! With equal rights to wage slavery.
Obedience stopped, life is magical
On top of it all, we have comrades and compaferas who
call the cops "pussy." This specifc slogan is an attempt to
denigrate the cop by comparing it with a pussy. Why does
this word denigrate the cop? The word "cunt" (and the body
part itself) is already denigrated in the social hierarchy of
gender. This relationship is reproduced everywhere. Now
also in the street!
Language reproduces and maintains the space in which
the authoritarian gender relations are normalized. Without
this space provided to them daily, these relationships fa11 into
a social vacuum, and thus are challenged.
In the dominant language, and in the language of the
street, the "ardent desire" for sexual exploitation ("we will
fuck you, pussy" etc. ) undermines social liberation.
Hey! go further.
The subordination of bodies to violence and to the
symbols of the ruling class can not be reversed with hidden
hierarchies.
Aside from the cop . . .
Also kill the sexist in your head!
-The menses fow, the body asks for rebellion.
We are an Image from the Future
The limitations of Anti-Sexism
Sissy Doutsiou from Void Network
During December 2008 anti -sexists were arguing about the
sexist behavior of comrades and youth in the streets who were
shouting the slogan "Cops, cunts, you kill children." This ar
gument opened a discussion in which a female group, par
ticipants in the December rebellion, expressed their opinion,
through posters and communiques, that many anarchists are
sexists and the "movement" has a problem with sexism. This
initiated a conversation among some Greek anarchists about
what is sexism, what can be called anti-sexism, and how you
can fght effectively against sexism. This conversation was
one more fragmented dialog that happened in the occupied
universities and in the streets behind the barricades in the
few moments of calmness while we recovered from the tear
gas burning our eyes and lungs.
When the clashes ended and the various collectives di
rected their energies into many different actions and projects
I found myself still thinking and trying to better understand
this sexistj anti -sexist debate that took place, and envision a
possible anarchist standpoint. I found myself trying to bring
together my experiences from participating in many different
anarchist groups in England over seven years, my thoughts
about anti -sexist comrades in international meetings against
the G8 or EU summit, and in squats and social centers across
Europe during tours and travels. Through rumors spread
mainly by anti-sexists and nonviolent demonstrators it seems
that many people believe that Greek anarchists are macho,
sexist, and lacking in their theoretical understanding of
seXism.
My goal in this essay is to use these international refec
tions in addition to my experiences during the social insurrec
tion of December 2008 to offet some thoughts about an anar
chist perspective on sexism and anti -sexism. The differences
between societies in terms of culture and norms of behavior
make the topic a vast one. The different cultures of resistance,
scales of confrontation, targets of disobedience, perspectives,
terminologies, and political agendas of this world make it
impossible to speak in general about sexism and anti -sexism
in the global anarchist movement. Many things I say here ex
press the thoughts of male, female, and homosexual comrades
here in Greece, while other comrades are in disagreement. I
hope these thoughts can open a creative debate.
Of course not all anti- sexists are the same, but I am
directing this criticism at what I see as a maj or part of the
anti- sexists. My maj or problem with these anti -sexists is how
they characterize certain people as sexists and the criteria
they use.
Each comrade has to change her everyday life frst and
then, as the next step, to share her experiences and visions
with her friends, her community, and her society. Of course,
we have to eliminate all the elements of capitalism, puritan
ism, sexism, greed, and apathy. The anarchist society-as we
imagine it, and work, and think and plan for it-is a different
society from the one we live in. It could be said that anarchy
is utopian-it is a network of honest human relationships free
of the traps the elite have used for centuries to dominate us.
Anarchy is a network of compassion and mutual aid without
the taboos and limitations of organized religion, capitalism,
and the State. Anarchy is the evolution to a more j oyous form
of life approaching the greatest possible freedom for all
the earth, the animals, humanity-where the people are not
forced to follow one defnite, obligatory way of life in order
to survive.
A part of the fght against today's oppressions is the fght
against sexism. But let's not make a distinction between sex
ism within the anarchist movement and sexism in society
because we are still part of this dominant society. Similarly,
though we reject the role of consumer and buy as little as
possible, we are still socialized in Western capitalist ethics and
still participate in the reproduction of Capital, even at this
minimum level.
Many anarchists believe that we frst have to fght against
sexism inside the movement and then to fght against sex
ism in society in general, or even if they do not adopt this
argument, their practice refects an almost exclusive focus on
internal sexism. The same people believe that if we destroy
Obedience stopped, life is magical
sexism within ourselves, then the anarchist movement will be
more open and more powerful, and above all more revolu
tionary. These anti- sexist warriors think that one of the weak
nesses of the revolutionary movement is that it is still not
inclusive for revolutionary women. Additionally, they men
tion the suppressive and condescending attitude prevalent in
meetings towards women who do not say anything i n public
but rather limit themselves to communicating in informal,
personal situations.
These women don't speak except to respond to the kind
of questions they are supposed to know about. The situation
ist Francoise Denevert, in her essay, "La Critique ad Mulier
ern" ( 1 975), describes and remonstrates these silent women
who, accidentally engaged in theoretical discussion, look wor
riedly from the edge of their eyes in search of acceptance from
their boyfriend or a close male friend. They will never dare
to admit their ignorance of a subj ect under discussion, and
entangled in a confusion of thoughts or repeating what they
heard someone else say, consider the diffculties they have as
something to be ashamed of. Paradoxically, these same silent
women, according to Denevert, are often eloquent writers,
who themselves frequently comment about the discrepancy
between their ability to express themselves in the written and
spoken word.
In reality, the ability to speak and to write depends on
the experiences of the person. It depends on self- cultivation,
on socialization, on courage. There are men who are not good
1
2
49
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We are an Image from the Future
speakers at all, and there are women who are not good speakers
at all. We cannot say that men are good speakers and women are
not; nor can we say that women are more sensitive than men,
as it depends on which women and which men we have met.
We cannot limit our analysis inside the anarchist space as there
are friends outside of the anarchist space who are not sexist,
j ust as there are friends in an assembly who are misogynists.
There are different women, there are different men, and
there are people who are different independent of their sex.
The characteristics of a personality are not sexually segre
gated. Passivity is not only a female characteristic and ribaldry
is not only a male characteristic. What is traditionally defned
to be masculinity and femininity are complementary and can
appear in both men and women.
If we accept the complaints and arguments of the anti
sexists, automatically the "silent women" are recognized as
having greater sensitivity and are unable to speak in public not
because of the behavior of their male comrades but because
of their sex. The anti -sexists lump together all the women
who don't speak in an assembly without taking into consid
eration the differences between these women. So, the "silent
women" and the watchers of the silent women are colonized
by the theory of anti -sexism and see their selves the same as
sexist society sees them. As Fran<oise Denevert was saying
these women are colonized by the spectacle of their self, and
they are colonized by the theory of anti- sexism. They enslave
themselves in the obedience of the "silent woman."
In our struggles we must be aware of the injustice capi
talism imposes on us, as the frst step to realizing that some
thing is wrong. But sometimes we see the enemy in a person,
a theory, or a situation which is only a vessel for the sexist
culture that shapes and oppresses them.
Sometimes after reading an anti -sexist text, we start
thinking that our boyfriend is a disgusting, sexist pig who
victimizes us, in the same way that after reading a psychol
ogy book we start diagnosing ourselves with imaginary
paranOIas.
Women can build an identity upon the historical oppres
sion they all share, and base their very respect for one another
on this shared history. Some women-feminists and anti
sexists-ask for recognition of woman as a political category.
And this is not only in the liberal political groups but also in
the anarchist scene. Judith Butler expresses a view that "the
representation of the category 'women' is always exclusive,
resulting in resistance to the domination that this representa
tion claims. The category 'women' is constituted by a political
system, including 'the State, ' then a politics that takes this
category as its foundation assists in the continual production
of a hierarchical gender division. Feminism should under
stand how the category of 'women' is produced and restrained
by these systems rather than seeking emancipation through
structures of power."
Also, woman as political category can seek recogni
tion of her liberation through an open assembly. But there
is a difference between creating an assembly structure that
recognizes women's right to equal participation and allow
ing or expecting individual women to demand and seize the
space for their equal participation. If we say that women are
not capable of the latter, aren't we the ones putting them in
a weaker position? There is an important difference between
being emancipated and empowering oneself. There is a differ
ence between recognition and demand. There is a difference
between respecting a woman because she is a woman and
respecting her because she is a respectable person.
Louise MicheF put her revolutionary beliefs in practice
because her sexual identity did not prevent her from doing
what she thought was right. She didn't want a special place
j ust because she was a woman, she wanted to be recognized
as a person regardless of her sex. She was consciously indif
ferent to existing agreements and compulsions based on her
sex. She was recognized for her political importance thanks to
her abilities, her radical nature, her courage, her decisiveness
and her consistency in realizing her theory and not because
of her sex.
The revolutionaries are acrobats on the rope of theory who
always fall, reaching too far in their quest to turn everything
2 Louise Michel ( 1 830-1 905) was a French anarchist, school teacher,
and medical worker who participated in the Paris Commune. She treated her
writings as emotional processes and not as intellectual ones. Her basic and
most compelling feature was her ability to provoke both spontaneous anger
against injustice in demonstrations and spontaneous assistance and mutual
aid in wider society.
Obedi ence stopped, life is magical
into politics. There is always the possibility of approaching
anti- sexism and feminism as a class war and anti- capitalist is
sue only so that it is certifed as a "valuable" political struggle.
On the other hand, there is the possibility of approaching
feminism and anti- sexism j ust as individual women and men
with bad personal moments and sad experiences with our
partners.
The anti- sexists aim for the permanent destruction of
gender inequality in revolutionary activity; in other words,
their aim is to destroy the roles that alienate both sexes and to
clarif the limitations these roles impose on the revolutionary
experience. They mean to destroy the contrast between femi
ninity and masculinity as a difference that comes from gen
der as a social construction. But femininity, masculinity, and
everything else are in the culture. Believing that femininity is
just an element of the alienation of women and masculinity is
only an element of the alienation of men leads to the possibil
ity of losing our sexiness and our sensuality.
Judith Butler, in her 1 993 interview by Peter Osborne
and Lynne Segal in London, says that "One of the interpreta
tions that has been made of Gender Truble is that there is no
sex, there is only gender, and gender is performative. 3 People
then go on to think that if gender is performative it must be
radically free. And i t has seemed to many that the materiality
of the body is vacated or ignored or negated here-disavowed,
3 The diference between performance and performativity is that a
performance presumes a subj ect but performativity contests the very notion
of subject.
We are an Image from the Future
even. (There's a symptomatic reading of this as somatopho
bia. It's interesting to have one's text pathologized.) . . . . how it
is that sex itself might be construed as a norm. Now, I take it
that's a presupposition of Lacanian psychoanalysis-that sex
is a norm. But I didn't want to remain restricted within the
Lacanian purview. I wanted to work out how a norm actually
materializes a body, how we might understand the materiality
of the body to be not only invested with a norm, but in some
sense animated by a norm, or contoured by a norm."
We can also see somatophobia as negating the care of our
body because of the recognition that this care is governed
by some norm. The acceptance of beauty of sexuality, of the
visible differences of the two sexes serves only as a capitalist
alienation, taking away from the individual their very own in
dividuality and connecting them to the undercover ideology
of the capitalist norm.
An individual under capitalism presupposes the use
of a capitalistic object and the application of such abstract
concepts as alienation, passivity, and an implicit admission
to let capital i sm penetrate inside his body and mind. The
individual, as an anarchist, classifes the penetration of the
alienation based on the frequency and the character of the
use, of the consumption of an obj ect, of a product, and not on
the consciousness of the use of the product.
The consciousness and the choice to use, to consume a
product, seems much more an alienated choice and not an un
derstanding of the very real distance between the obj ect itself
and the use of the obj ect under capitalism. Everything seems
to be lost in a relentless theorizing and an almost totalitarian
relativism imposed by postmodern discourse and the need
to defne ourselves in the framework of yet another standard
theory with the familiar standard enemy and standard allies.
The women who want to look the same as the super
models and as the sex kittens on the magazine covers and the
men who want to reproduce the hard and "macho" sexy man
of the soap operas and newscasters relive "the society of the
spectacle as simple promoters of the culture" (G. Debord).
Yet the women who express their aggression towards men in
order to show that they are not subj ugated by any man, or the
men who avoid an honest aggressive dialogue with women
because they must behave gently otherwise they would be
sexists, or even anarchist men and women who locate errone
ous behaviors and explain them as sexist behaviors . . . all of
these are the dolls that merely confrm the spectacle of the
anti-sexist theory. Truly anarchist men and women take every
effort to avoid merely confrming the sexist spectacle and to
fght against it, even if they have a lot of taboos, problems,
theoretical dead- ends, and many both written and unwritten
political agendas.
A woman can be an accomplice to the "masculinity"
that she allows to be imposed on her. All women (both in
the West and in the East, although in the East they will face
humiliation and even torture) have the ability to demand
their time to speak, to put their thoughts and their ideas into
practice, to swear at a man when they don't like his behavior,
to humiliate a man if they think that this man humiliated
their gender or themselves.
On the other hand, Simone de Beauvoir in her 1 976 in
terview with John Gerassi said that a secretary or the wife of
a worker could not enjoy the privileges that she enjoyed as a
woman because these women did not abandon their female
nature and their life was defned, determined. Beauvoir as an
existentialist accepts the principle that existence precedes es
sence. Therefore, she believes that no one is born a woman,
but becomes one. She said that these women must be aware
of their dependence and then they have to believe in their
own force and the women who have an interest in cooperation
with the male- dominated society must be made aware of their
betrayal; however, Beauvoir's position supposes that only the
women who are well educated are able to understand the so
cial phenomena. Does this education come from a certifcated
institution? Of course not. All women can feel and enforce
their freedom without reference to their j ob, class, age, and
sexual desires.
We should not present the "silent women" as passive, in
nocent women because in this way these women are forced
to not believe in their own thoughts and fnally, feeling weak,
to express only a childish anti-male identity based on intol
erance. We should be careful that our theories do not turn
the emancipated woman into some sort of compulsory asex
ual or "bitch" that just builds her identity on some immense
Obedience stopped, life is magical
illustrative narrative of her politicized problems. In this way,
she will never understand what exactly made her a "silent
woman, " and as an oppressed woman she will always be
trapped in the explanations and excuses of an oppressive sex
ist society, never thinking deeper about her own limitations,
fears, and insecurities.
Our theories should also not stereotype loutish men as
oppressive men, because in this way the loutish men will only
become more certain of the efectiveness of the patriarchal
structures and repressive mechanisms that they reproduce
as men. Cast as a group and not as individuals with unique
whims, these men will not be able to understand that their
behavior produces sufering not only for others but also for
themselves. "Normal" identities and even identities that are
based on going against these normal identities are attached
to the fetters of the bourgeois morality or some caricature of
revolutionary morality. The frst morality is the passport for
the reliable slaves of the State and the other is the passport for
the reliable revolutionaries who have been conquered by the
morality of the bourgeoisie, as they defne themselves in ne
gation to their bourgeois morality. But we don't want any kind
of passport or permission to follow revolutionary ideas. Even
if there were an anarchist morality, we would be the heretics.
A claim for a morality that would be suitable for all is
an illusion. What is fair for one person can be restrictive for
another. An "obj ective" morality that treats all individuals the
same without taking into consideration the particularities (the
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We are an Image from the Future
enormous difference between people) is a slave morality. Each
individual can make up their own morality and their own
criterion for dignity, within the twin limits of schizophrenia
and freedom.
Each identity group can defne a "self." Experiences, par
ticipation, and actions with different groups create certain
idiosyncrasies. Various expressions of our self can coexist
and these give us the ability to explore new phenomena and
social relations. Any kind of ideology that is incapable of un
derstanding social phenomena only makes us obj ects of that
ideology. Throughout the ages a socially aware person has
been able to express vastly more intelligence and sensitivity
in understanding social phenomena than a person entrenched
in ideology. An activist acting in multiple struggles across
identity groups is then far more capable of enacting revolu
tion as compared to one who has a constructed identity in a
specifc group. This is the multi- expressional activist.
I t is necessary for every person as an individual to resist,
struggle, demand, and scream for their freedom. Nobody
should be more respectfl in relation to others. W don't
want men who will continue to express their macho status at
any price nor women who will mourn because of their treat
ment by men. Using our political consciousness, we need to
know and feel that men who dominate or behave badly with
women are legitimizing the existing structures of authority
and contributing to a wider net of domination which holds
people back.
Sexism refers to when someone, woman or man, believes
that his or her sex is superior or the opposite inferior, prof
cient or incapable, valuable or worthless compared with the
other gender. Sexist behaviors confrm and continue to ap
ply male and female stereotypes, and are infuenced by and
reproduce these impressions and beliefs. But we should not
forget that the leveling of diferences is disorienting since it
disrespects the particularities. It is impossible to simultane
ously sustain basic sexist personal characteristics and try to
eliminate the inequality between the two sexes. At the same
time we want to be ourselves, to keep expressing our unique
individuality. As Emma Goldman said, "the mass and the in
dividual, the true democrat and the true individual, man and
woman, can meet without antagonism and opposition." In her
opinion, women have the right to love and be satisfed sexu
ally but if women are the only ones to emancipate themselves
while the whole society doesn't change, these women would
remain without an appropriate partner.
If women are released from their bonds while the remain
ing society is imprisoned by its bonds then their emancipa
tion would not last. Liberation is not only for women. When
we smash all barriers, liberation and emancipation will be the
path to total freedom, liberation from obedience, the standard
of morality, and the power of authority. We say this j ust to
remind ourselves to avoid the traps of the heroic woman.
Sexism has spread everywhere, in every way we relate.
Our comrades are not sexist but the authoritarian logic that
anti-sexists borrow in order to distinguish them as sexists is
sexist. Who exactly are sexists and who are anti -sexists? Are
these roles absolutely separated? Where are the borders of
sexism and anti-sexism? The agreement on these distinc
tions, as these distinctions are created by our social norms,
is sexist.
The slogan of identity politics is "the celebration of dif
ference." Yet it is a celebration of complacency That identity
is something fxed and everlasting is an illusion. It is absurd
to demand rights through the validation of victimization. I
agree that there should be a "celebration of diference" but
from another route to another destination. We can celebrate
all together or we can celebrate as individuals who constitute
themselves with the characteristics that the society and the
state provide us. Identity needs to be analyzed philosophical
ly and politically. Anti-sexism bases its dialectics on cultural
categories (macho men and oppressed women) constructed,
maintained, and used by the dominant culture. The defni
tion of a specifc denigrated sex, race, or social- economic class
maintains the homogeneous culture of the dominant moral
ism, the specifc categorization that something detectable
refects the common sense made by the statists, the sexists,
and the racists. Marginalization doesn't end with the creation
of marginalized groups. The division creates two groups, two
categories. The division occurs when we deny the struggle of
a group based on identity but it also occurs when the sup-
Obedience stopped, life is magical
porters, the participants, divide themselves and name their
comrades as enemies.
Creating two opposite groups means that in theory and
in practice, there is a confict between them that must be
solved. All behaviors are scanned by the undervalued sex.
This is necessary as the sexists don't notice the behaviors of
their sex obj ect since they are hypnotized by stereotypes of
the two sexes. The anti- sexists examine every manner, every
timbre and tone of the voice, any expression of the sexist and
patriarchal macrocosm.
Language shapes us, composes us, and forms us. Lan
guage is based not on words per se but on the use of this word
and the meaning of it at a specifc time and place. However,
the anti-sexist hysteria with language, with both creating new
words and not using certain words, only makes those feel guilty
who express themselves using words in a colloquial manner.
This leads to a dead-end even if it is simple and convenient
to base the effects of sexism on j ust words. Phenomena such
as metaphors, irony, and exaggeration abound in language.
The meaning of a sentence cannot be captured solely by the
defnitions of the words that constitute the sentence. Those
purporting to be anti -sexist only end up as j ailers of seman
tics and detectives of the prohibited colloquial expressions.
In practice, the participants of an identity group, and
especially some anti -sexists, keep watch over their members,
their comrades in meetings, and in everyday life by impos
ing a certain identity, a fully determined behavior code that
We are an Image from the Future
implicitly presents a united homogeneous identity. Some
anti -sexists posit men's behavior to be a direct result of ste
reotypes from the sexist society, analyzing people as a defnite
result of a defnite cause. Many of them are also essentialists,
ignoring the complexity of social relations and homogenizing
individuals in order to ft them into categories, without taking
into consideration cultural, psychological, and historical dif
ferences, or allowing the individual to occasionally exist un
burdened by any political analysis, to j ust be a person rather
than the alienated product of inhuman social mechanisms.
What we say and what we think are uncertain and chaotic.
The lace around us is so tight and we want to loosen it.
The fashion, the lipstick, and the high heels, the expensive
dresses and the modern styles are obligatory. However, a girl
can decide to wear a short white dress, high heels, and red
lipstick and have political consciousness. An anti -sexist would
likely consider this girl to be stupid and not take her opinion
seriously. Now, who here is sexist? Once trapped in anti- sex
ism, we found ourselves hidden under a rough exterior and
we lose 1 femininity.
The Church teaches fear, humility, decency, frugality, and
submissiveness as important elements of a faithful Christian.
The Church teaches the inferiority of women, presupposing
that women fall easily into sin, so that she has to be a faith
ful believer and loyal supporter of the authority of men, like
her husband, her father, her brother. How many of us have
Christian parents, how many of us heard stories about Jesus
and the Virgin Mary? Most offcial religions are oppressive
towards women. We-men, women, transsexuals, homosexu
als, hermaphrodites-have thousands of years of patriarchy
and submission to confront and a heritage of elitism, feudal
ism, and the whole industrial society to eliminate from our
minds and our memories.
For hundreds of years patriarchal societies have not just
given birth to obedient, submissive women. These very same
societies have given birth to wild, liberated beings, to goddesses
and orgiastic women, revolutionaries and poets, dreamers and
wild witches. The past cannot be separated from the present;
it will always leave its mark on the structures of today. In order
to open the path to the future, we need to fght the obstacles
we have inherited from the past and not the past itself. The
unfnished battles of the sexual revolution leave us with hab
its, behaviors, and beliefs from the conservative society of the
beginning of the 20th century. To overcome this conservatism,
we need to identify which of these characteristics are actually
obstacles rather than trying to erase all reminders of the past,
do many anti -sexists do.
At the same time as the church enforces an antisexual
Puritanism, capitalism sells-through all kind of media and
advertisements-cynical hedonism and egoist sexism as sym
bols of social status and the modern way of life. So, naturally,
it is easy for people who want to fght sexism, in their effort to
avoid cynical capitalistic sexism, to reproduce puritanical at
titudes or asexual ways of life. On the other hand, it is possible
for those who choose to fght against Christian morality and
puritanical social codes to trap themselves in an egoistic, sexu
ally extreme life and self-approved fetishism accompanied by
an inability to create and sustain long-term love relationships.
These are two problems that we have to face day after day in
our struggle for erotic, j oyous love relationships.
Comrades can adopt a puritanical opposition to sex and
sexuality, and so embrace censorship, control, and suppres
sion against pornography and all kinds of eroticism. This
repressive behavior is rooted in systems of values that will
need years, decades, and even centuries to be uprooted. Only
then will sexism cease to exist. But my dear, today we can
not be non-sexist in a society where there are institutions of
hierarchy and there are relations of power and domination.
The oppression and opposition to our dreams come from all
the dominant, authoritarian social mechanisms rather than
simply masculine men, patriarchal behaviors, and sexism.
Anarchist women and men need to see gender-based in
j ustice as an expression of the dominant culture's ethos and
avoid hypocrisy with an anti-sexist logic. We need to decon
struct the dominant reality, the substructure of this civiliza
tion. We need to deny the morality of the present time and the
meanings of the words.
We need to move beyond understanding sexism as an
individual issue or singularly as an institutional, social or cul
tural problem. Sexism is a social problem and an individual is
sue simultaneously Society and the individual feed each other,
Obedi ence stopped, life is magical
having a reciprocal relationship. Are not single-issue struggles
a part of the whole? An analysis and political struggle based on
some "obj ective" feature only creates groups that are catego
rized by these traits (gender for sexism, race for racism, class
for classism, nationality for nationalism) . Identity politics only
reinforces identities that are maintained, rationalized, validated
by the sexists, the racists, the nationalists, the rulers.
We want to reverse the entire dominant culture. Identif
cation and association with a group are not suffcient. Divided
struggles based on identity cannot destroy the dominant real
ity from its singularity.
Joshua Gamson, a sociologist, argues that there is a di
lemma: if the ethnic/ essentialist maintenance of boundaries
and the queer/ deconstructionist destabilization of boundar
ies make sense. Gamson believes that queer politics reveal the
limitations of essentialist gay and lesbian identity politics that
inherently strengthen binary divisions, including the divisions
between man/woman and hetero/homo that are produced by
political oppression. But, he says that "the deconstructionist"
strategies remain quite deaf and blind to the very concrete and
violent institutional forms to which the most logical answer
is resistance in and through a particular collective identity.
To borrow a saying of sociologist Jeffrey Weeks, "operational
identities are necessary fctions."
The capitalist system is sexist, it promotes an "objective"
norm of beauty. Capitalism is all about proft and destroys
the planet with the industries that produce consumer goods.
We are an I mage from the Future
Capitalism sells water, food, art, philosophy, our radical his
tory, love, and sex. Capitalism uses the human body as a piggy
bank. Capitalism uses images of a happy family or of a man
who loves a woman to sell merchandise, private education,
and bank loans. Capitalism uses our sexual desires to sell cars,
shampoos, and toothpastes.
Our everyday decisions and practices sustain state
institutions and markets that reproduce this world. Our
obligation, our participation, and unconscious need to be a
link in the chain of production keeps this system alive. All
these days and years in offces, schools, universities, shops,
and supermarkets keep this society functioning and expand
ing. Our discipline increases the greed of this system. Our
struggles against sexism, against racism, against homophobia,
against social apathy, and obedience to fashion, mass media
and egocentrism, are all parts of a struggle for cultural and
social change.
Confronting certain individual behaviors is synonymous
with confronting the regime. The revolution is a constant
process of mutation and a conscious decision to defne the
conditions within which we live. Each of us, as an individual
with her friends or her lover, needs to make the frst jump be
yond this given reality. As radical individuals we are rabid for
the destruction of this world; when we fght we are fghting
for our lives. We decide to fght for total freedom motivated
by our dreams and not by the decisions of some assembly
or group. Sometimes loyalty to a group, to a collective, can
become compulsive but the loyalty to the beat of our heart is
above all politics. There will always be men and women and
children who will be very impudent or kind, raunchy or shy,
vulgar or polite, saucy or gentle, nymphomaniac or asexual.
Capitalism would still not be threatened if we stopped
being sexist, but if we quit our j obs and dropped out of the
universities then the capitalist system could collapse. Even if
these actions did not cause it to collapse, we would have more
time to dedicate to the procedures of the war against the State,
more time to dedicate to our cultural revolution, more time to
dedicate to the barricades, more time to dedicate to the culti
vation of ourselves (to understand the phenomena and have
critical thought) independently of wage slavery and time spent
in the classrooms. This is time that we don't give to friends, to
lovers, to assemblies and squats and demonstrations and fghts
and proj ects, these hours that we offer to the system, the hours
that we don't share with loved ones are our chains.
Some people think that the biggest problem of the Greek
anarchist movement is that it is sexist. As a Greek anarchist
woman I think the biggest problem is that the anarchist move
ment cannot explain to society how an anarchist world could
function. We don't have applied anarchist social economics.
As we cultivate ourselves, we cultivate the community
around us in a cycle of constant interdependence. We, as an
archists, must be aware of struggling against the dominant
cultural ethos, to live and experience life, with our limits.
We fght for the vision of our dreams and the breadth of our
visions. We fght authority wherever we meet it.
Sexism outside and inside capitalism will corrode as we
appear in every neighborhood, in every march, in every re
bellion, both small and large. We will confront issues, start
conversations and critiques, and share ideas and dreams so
that we will not see anti- sexism as a separate issue, separated
from the whole body of revolution.
We are fghting for gay and lesbian power as we fght for
the elimination of the State. We fght for identity and gender
issues as we fght against repression and exploitation. We fght
for the freedom of transsexuals as we fght for our freedom.
Maybe we are not transsexual, and maybe in our country a
girl can kiss another on her red lips, but in Uganda, Morocco,
and Saudi Arabia it is illegal and dangerous and you could
be put in prison for a kiss like that. In our country it is not
illegal to be homosexual but in many countries your parents
can have you committed. We fght for women's liberation and
we fght against sexism.
We grow up in a sexist society that imbues us with the idea
that women are inferior to men. Anti-sexism is not just about
fghting against forms of sexism like violent rape, domestic vio
lence, and overtly sexist words, it is also about challenging our
relationships, the ideas that create a rpe culture, the way that
the people are socialized, our needs, our desires, our passions.
Anti -sexists challenge the ideas and behaviors that pro
mote masculine sexism and alienated women, both in per
sonal relationships and in social and political groups. But we
Obedience stopped, life is magical
have to remember that the relationships are not so simple,
they are always complicated.
We are human, and men exist and women exist, as dif
ferent as all of us are different. Some people are shy while
some aren't, some people are charismatic while some aren't.
Some women are sensitive and some aren't, some men are fat
and some aren't. Some humans have a dick and some others
have a pussy . . . some women shave their pussy and others do
not. Some women are more masculine and some aren't, some
men are more feminine and some aren't. Some men are more
"macho" than others and some are not "macho" at all. Some
women are nymphomaniac and some unorgasmic.
Masculinity and femininity is a personal trait, a personal
relish. It is matter of taste if someone likes a macho man or
an effeminate man, j ust as it is a matter of taste when a man
likes a teenager or an adult, a BDSM mistress or a willing
slave. Masculinity and sexism are different. Some masculine
anarchist men gain a superfcial understanding of the sexism
in society by reading about women's liberation and feminism,
and fght for anti-sexism within the anarchist movement. But
it is a pseudo- analysis and pseudo- politics when we try to
analyze and separate the anarchist movement from the whole
society, a micro-logic for a micro-analysis. The anarchist space
is not somewhere else, it is not a different planet so we can
not analyze its own community, separate from capitalism. The
anarchists are not saints living on holy mountains, living in
foreign lands far from their grandmothers and fathers.
We are an Image from the Future
We can have self- criticism about anarchist spaces with
out paralyzing ourselves. The women who I know participate
and contribute as much as they can and as they want in the
movement, before, during, and after December. No comrade
stops them, no one disrespects them, no one interrupts them
in a meeting because they are women. People interrupt a
woman in a meeting as they could interrupt a man if they
don't respect or don't agree with what they say, not because
of their gender. There are not masculine and feminine discus
sions, there are not masculine direct actions, and there are not
separations and exclusions for girls and boys in their partici
pation. If there is a particular majority of one sex, that doesn't
mean the resistance takes on the characteristics of this sex, as
each sex is fexible and infuenced by the other sex. There is
no masculine or feminine participation in resistance: there is
only resistance. Women are not treated as a weak gender and
they don't have a secondary role in the street fghts, in arson
attacks, in meetings, and in decision- making.
Dualism separates reality into two parts, the good and
the bad. The anti -sexists are the good ones and the sexists are
the bad ones. Anti- sexists focus on the authority of men as
oppressive, but anarchists have to fght against the oppression
of authoritarian society in total. The anarchists fght against
alienation, exploitation, and power as a whole as expressed
through decisions, hopes, activities, and plans of each member
of this society. A part of this fght is the fght against sexism.
The whole world-our friends, our parents, our trips,
our acid-trips, our readings, our listening-infuences us.
We choose to free ourselves from normality to become the
most extreme of beings. We want to break through identi
ties established by society, by tradition, and even by anarchist
spaces. This deconstruction does not have to lead to nihilism;
we can deconstruct these identities in order to arrive at a new
synthesis, new understandings, and new horizons.
We encourage women to participate in actions and events
as we encourage men and kids and grandmothers to partici
pate in them. Is it mostly men or women who are taking up
speaking engagements? Who talks at meetings? Who facili
tates meetings? Who does the work of the organization, and
then, who gets credit for it? These questions can be answered
but this becomes mere statistics. In the world of chaos theory,
the statistics of normality don't work!
"Join The Resistance . . . Fall in Love."
We want to celebrate our fuid identities and not a newly
constructed political identity. The anarchist movements fght
against sexism but they are not identifed with a separate
anti-sexist ideology. We can defne what sexist behavior is
but not what an anti-sexist behavior has to be. The anarchist
activists fght against sexism but not through a separate ideo
logical identity of "anti -sexists." The society maintains sexism
as long as we don't fght against authority, exploitation, and
alienation.
Now there are more soci al centers in
Thessaloniki
Adriani and Flora: Two students of the
Aristoteleous University of Thessaloniki
We really started to become active in December. Two years ear
lier, during the student movement, we voted for the occupation
in our assembly but we weren't really active, you know?
December was incredible. All the people were out in the
streets, it was unstoppable. There was a lot of destruction.
1'm from the part of the movement that is against the de
struction, but . . . it was good that it happened. It made it clear
that it won't be tolerated when the police kill a young boy.
N ow there are more social centers in Thessaloniki, I don't
know how many exactly, but many. I like to go to Buenaven
tura. It's like a social and cultural center. Yfanet is nice but
for normal people it's not so open. Delta, Yfanet, they're older
buildings, a little bit dirty. They have a different feeling, a dif
ferent aesthetic. But Buenaventura is a new building and it's
very nice, very clean. It's also run by anarchists but it's open,
it's easy for normal people to come to. They have lots of events,
like free language classes. I take Japanese lessons there. And in
Obedience stopped, life is magical
the evenings there is usually cinema, some documentaries or
flms, maybe a presentation. It's nice, you should come.
262
We are an Image from the Future
Many peopl e were saying that they want
Bul garian society to be " l ike in Greece"
Jana : An anarchist and blogger from Bulgaria
Initially the mass media demonized the Greek anarchists
and tried to present them as terrorists and so on. Once it was
clear that the revolt went beyond anarchists the mass media
attempted to understand what was happening. Most stories
were absurd-referring to ancient Greece or the "hotness of
the southern blood." There were some liberal understand
ings-the "economic crisis" argument and a struggle against
corruption.
Many people here in Bulgaria were sympathetic to what
they understood as a greater level of concern for social issues
in Greek society. I do not think those people were sympathetic
because of what had been shown in the media, which as I said
was often contradictory, incomplete, and very simplistic. Nei
ther was it for any reasons people developed themselves, sepa
rate from the media interpretations. I think there was much
sympathy because people would project their own beliefs,
ideas, and anger onto what was going on. People saw Greece
as a rebellion against the inj ustices they perceived them
selves. For example, the liberals saw it as a rebellion against
corruption, the nationalists/ patriots saw that the Greeks
cared for the children. Many people in Bulgaria are also angry
at the isolation, alienation, and ultra-individualism of this so
ciety, even though they would express it in different language,
depending on their politics. I think people were happy that
someone was rebelling and j ealous and self- deprecating that
it doesn't happen here. This kind of self- hate is common here:
"In foreign countries it is always better."
In order to organize solidarity we were translating .d
trying to spread information on the Internet. We translated
everything from sites like the Voices fom Occupied London
blog. 1 Many people we didn't know before were very inter
ested and the website hits went up dramatically. Some people
even joined to help with translations.
As for any real solidarity, the leftist student group Priziv,
whom we work with, organized a small event. There was a
discussion in Sofa University and then a small solidarity pro
test. There were only thirty or forty people, but this i s normal
for here. It was peaceful and there weren't many police. They
didn't bother us when we stuck our posters on the door of the
Greek Embassy, even though the protest was unpermitted,
which is unusual.
The fascist reaction to the Greek rebellion was quite
interesting. At frst the fascists just demonized anarchists on
Ed: This blog was perhaps the most important point of translation
and difusion for Greek texts in English, and also responsible for some of the
translations in this book.
their websites. They said, you see what the anarchists are doing,
saying that anarchists do not respect property, they are lazy
they have a destructive ideology, and that they do not respect
police authority. But once they understood that this was not
going to stop after a few days they stopped writing shit on
their websites. Probably most of them felt angry that they
weren't in revolt like the Greeks.
In December a student in his twenties was killed in a
fght on the student campus in Sofa. He was attacked by a
group of drunk guys who beat him to death. The students
politicized his death. They were under the strong infuence
of the images coming from Greece. There is a high level of
everyday violence in Bulgaria and it is not the frst case of a
similar murder, but usually people do not pay much attention.
At least the attention is not manifested in the public sphere,
but is limited to individualized complaints. Many young
people felt, for nationalistic reasons, that the Bulgarian youth
should care more about Bulgarian children, like the youth in
Greece. Leftist students tried to show that this murder, as well
as the very high levels of violence on the student campus, is
linked to the heavy process of commercialization that is going
on there. The Sofa student campus has the most clubs and
bars in the whole city. They are mostly owned and used by the
mafa and people inspired by the gangster, macho lifestyle
one that praises brutal violence as a way to assert oneself into
the patriarchal and strongly conservative social order-and is
extremely widespread in post-socialist capitalism.
Obedience stopped, life is magi cal
The family of the boy who was killed also saw structural
reasons for the death. They called out for action against the
conditions that allowed it to happen. Some of the leftist stu
dents met with them.
The murder was also politicized by one right-wing popu
list student group, SROKSOS. They were using some of the
slogans that were coming out of Greece, which they had
probably read in the texts that we translated, along with ultra
conservative slogans like "we are the oldest state in Europe."
In December a demo was organized by both the leftist
and the populist group. This may sound stupid and maybe
it was a mistake, but I support the leftists in their decision to
cooperate with the populists at that time, because they man
aged to push more radical demands and to identif commer
cialization (which is heavily linked with the mafa lifestyle)
as the structural reason behind the high levels of destructive
violence. Also at that moment it was not clear how conserva
tive SROKSOS actually were. The demo was organized in
cooperation with environmentalists as well. It went okay, even
though one of the fascist parties tried to infltrate and lead
the protest-but they couldn't in the end, because people
wouldn't allow them to do so. Many people j oined the demo,
which I think would not have happened without what was
going in Greece at the same time. Many people were saying,
the conservatives as well, that they wanted Bulgarian society
to be "like in Greece, " as people were often putting it.
We are an Image from the Future
Another demo was announced for the 1 4th of January,
again co- organized by the students and the environmental
ists. Soon we understood that the conservative students uni
laterally decided to cooperate with the fascists and the leftist
student group left the organization. The right- wing populist
students decided to play the national vanguard calling out for
"national" protests, completely void of meaning, j ust empty
talk, to be interpreted at will. We, the anarchists, published a
declaration that we were not involved, as well as a warning of
what was going to happen on the 1 4th, and some of the press
published our position. It was good that we made it, because
there were already many stories in the press demonizing anar
chists and scaring people with some mythical Greek football
hooligans that were coming to return the favor after some
Bulgarian anarchists helped in the Greek riots. We also met
with the environmentalists to warn them, but they were a bit
naive and they didn't take us seriously. They didn't really think
SROKSOS met with fascists, and obviously the fascists don't
defne themselves as such. This time they were disguised as a
"sports organization, " though SROKSOS clearly knew who
they were cooperating with.
At the so- called national protest there were a lot of
people, thanks to the empty nationalistic language that was
used in the mobilization. On the 1 4th there were all kinds
of contradictory groups and demands-neoliberal political
elites, fascists, environmentalists, some fanatics who were
demanding that old people should not have voting rights,
students demanding nationalization of the student campus
and so on. It was absurd.
The fascists were separated into some kind of a nazi black
bloc; they use this kind of style here, copying it from the Ger
man national-autonome. In the end there was a big nazi riot
all over the center of Sofa. Its images attracted a lot of media
attention and often it was interpreted as a continuation of the
Greek revolt. The images they would see probably confused
them even more, as the Bulgarian nazis wear black outfts and
try to imitate the anarchists. In the Guardian or somewhere
there was that article saying this was the frst credit crunch
riot spreading from Greece to other countries. Some people
have a very simplistic understanding of politics. They think
some economic indexes change in percentage and afterwards
riots automatically follow. I am not saying there are no struc
tural reasons for people's discontent, but discontent can go
in many directions. Also there are many reasons for anger. It
is not as the liberals, who mainly see corruption, nor as the
traditional Left, who can only see economic crisis and degra
dation, would have it.
The next step is to create the pl aces where
al l the peopl e can meet
Little John: An anrchist wo has been active for
ten year, and is involved with one of Th essaloniki's
squated social center, Fabrika Yfanet
In the last few years at Fabrika Yfanet, we've to developed
structure necessary to organize open events. We've mostly
done ideological work: publishing texts and forming groups
that took on a specifc theme, organizing actions and discus
sions, participating in demonstrations, communicating to
others about how we organized. And direct action of course.
The space is basically a political social center. It's not just a
social center where people can be creative or come to fulfll
certain needs, although this is a part of it. The difference is
that the assembly of Yfanet is also a political assembly that
involves itself in campaigns, makes political posters-we have
a presence in the city.
You could say that lots of young people started to get
involved through Yfanet. In recent years the anarchist move
ment has spread ideas about different ways to resist, and I
think that offering this allowed December to happen. But in
Thessaloniki, after December, you didn't see lots of young
Obedi ence stopped, li fe is magi cal
people coming to the social centers wanting to get i nvolved.
Part of the reason i s that Yfanet was a bit closed at this time.
People were at meetings i n the universities and here we only
had small, closed meetings, so as a building or a structure it
didn't work for the masses. It worked for a smaller group of
people who needed i t. But i n general Yfanet is an open place.
You see many different people going there and they can see
that it's a place that's open for them too. Maybe they don't
participate in the assemblies, but going there has become
normal for them and we can communicate without alienat
ing them.
I think the State has begun its counterinsurgency, yet
we don't understood what has happened. We can't fnd the
time to discuss it calmly, so I don't know. There are a lot of
questions we still have to answer. Since December so many
people are talking about anarchists, they want to know what
anarchism is, so for me the next step is to create places where
all the people can meet-maybe on the basis of a common
need. It can't be a one time thing, it must be a response to a
need people experience every day, or a response to something
that oppresses us every day. A new strategy that came out
of Athens that is inspiring lots of people is to initiate local,
neighborhood assemblies.
In December this cinema was squatted, Olympian cin
ema, in the city center, and all sorts of people came there to
talk with anarchists, to participate. It was strange because we
weren't ready to propose anything, we were there j ust trying
We are an Image from the Future
to organize a meeting. But all these new people came and it
turned into an interview with the anarchists: Why this? Why
that? What do you want to do? This shows that people wanted
to do more and to fnd ways to participate. We weren't ready
for this, and next time we have to do it better.
So we're starting with neighborhood assemblies, getting
used to talking with people from outside the movement. We're
doing this in our neighborhood now, near Yfanet. We had to
fnd a neutral place, not a squat, where everyone would feel
comfortable. I think that maybe in fve years it will be work
ing great. Hal It's also happening in a few other neighbor
hoods. And other people are starting new social centers, like
one in the western part of the city where there has never been
anything. And this is all the product of December.
But the State wants to stop it. In the newspapers today it
said that law had to be brought to the squats and the police
had to be able to enter them to see if illegal activities were
taking place. And they tried to connect it to the student oc
cupations. In the newspapers they confused everything-the
students, the anarchists, random crimes happening near the
universities. They try to blame it all on the occupations to
scare people so they'll want the police to come protect them.
They want to criminalize the squats and the anarchists. It
could be a preparation for some kind of repression.
The Rebel lion, the Workplaces, and the
Rank' N' File Unions: EXTRACT FROM "THE REBEL
LI OUS PASSAGE OF A PROlETARIAN MI NORITY THROUGH A
BRI EF PERI OD OF TI ME"
TPTG
To discuss the reasons why the rebellion did not extend to
the workplace-a question often asked by comrades abroad
we need frst to be more analytical about certain segments of
the proletariat. From our knowledge, those workers who can
be described either as "workers with a stable j ob, " or non
precarious, had very limited participation in the rebellion, if
any. For those stable workers who actually took part in the
rebellion, to try and extend it to their workplaces would mean
engaging in wildcat strikes outside and against trade unions,
since most strikes are called and controlled by them. In the
last twenty years many strikes have been called in the public
sector (education, public utility services, some ministries) .
These past struggles have shown that the workers were not
able to create autonomous forms of organization, and move
beyond the trade unionist demands.
Occupations of workplaces have only taken place as
defensive struggles against closures or relocations, mostly of
textile factories. But even those, as well as most strikes, in the
previous years have by and large ended in defeat.
Capitalism in Greece is characterized by a low concen
tration of capital resulting in small frms where even fewer
than ten people are employed and almost no unionism exists.
The precarious waged workers, one of the main subj ects of
the rebellion, who mainly work in such places, do not consider
them to be a terrain of proletarian power and mobilization. In
most cases they are not attached to their j ob. Possibly it was
their inability or even unwillingness to mobilize on the job
that made young precarious workers take to the streets. More
over, like we said before, this frst urban rebellion in Greece
was, like all modern urban rebellions, a violent eruption of
delegitimization of capitalist institutions of control and, what's
more, a short-lived experience of a communal life against sepa
rations and outside the workplaces-with the notable exception
of the universities and the municipality of Aghios Dimitrios.
In the case of precarious workers, extending the rebellion to
their workplaces would mean wildcats and occupations and
nothing less. Given the practical possibilities there and their
subj ective disposition, such activity was both unfeasible and
undesirable.
However, many rebels realized these limits and tried
to make such a leap. The occupation of the central offces
of the General Confederation of Labor of Gn;ece (GSEE)
stemmed from the need for workplace action and to under
mine the media coverage of the rebellion as a "youth protest
Obedience stopped, life is magical
at the expense of the workers' interests." Besides, it offered an
opportunity to expose the undermining role of GSEE itself
in the rebellion. The initiative was taken by some members of
the rank' n'fle union of couriers, who are mostly antiauthori
tarians. However, during the occupation it became obvious
that the rank' n' fle version of unionism could not relate to the
rebellion. There were two, although not clear- cut, tendencies
even at the preparation assembly: a unionist-workerist one
and a proletarian one. For the unionist -workerist tendency
the occupation should have had a distinct "worker" character
as opposed to the so- called youth or "metropolitan" charac
ter of the rebellion, while those in the second tendency saw
the occupation as only one moment of the rebellion, as an op
portunity to attack one more institution of capitalist control
and as a meeting point of high school students, university
students, unemployed, waged workers, and immigrants, that
is as one more community of struggle in the context of the
general unrest. In fact, the unionist-workerist tendency tried
to use the occupation as an instrument of the union, and the
idea of a base unionism, independent of political infuences,
in general. This didn't work. That's why some of them re
mained there just for two days.
As far as the rest of the "independent" left unions are con
cerned, things were even worse. There was only one assembly
of trade unionists in the Faculty of Law on December 1 0th
where several left bureaucrats stressed the need for a "politi
cal prospect" in the rebellion, meaning a political and unionist
We are an Image from the Future
mediation expressed in a list of populist demands. They re
j ected any proposals for violent action and pompously called
for general assemblies and agitation at the workplaces for a
general strike after one week-needless to say that nothing of
the sort was ever tried.
In January the media workers that had participated actively
in the rebellion occupied the ofces of the corporatist j ournal
ists' trade union. The Union of Editors of the Daily Newspa
pers of Athens (ESIEA) is the main j ournalists' trade union
in Greece. It includes j ournalists from the major Athenian
newspapers, many of whom are at the same time employers be
cause they are TV producers or they own newspapers, while it
excludes those j ournalists who work with precarious contracts
or are hired as "freelancers."The occupation of ESIEA focused
broadly on two issues: the frst was work relations focusing on
the widespread precariousness in the media industry and the
fragmented form of union organization of the media workers;
the second was the control of information by the ofcial media,
the way the revolt was "covered" by them and how counter
information coul d be produced by the moement.
After the end of the occupation the same people created
an assembly of media workers, students, and unemployed that
organized a series of actions at various workplaces against
layoffs, or attempted layoffs, and "covered" demos and other
activities of the movement in a way that was against the domi
nant propaganda. Many members of this assembly are former
students of the Faculty of Mass Media and Communication
and took part in the students' movement against the univer
sity reform in 200607. Others had for years worked to cre
ate a new union that would include all the media workers.
Right now workers in the media industry are organized in
ffteen different unions (photographers, j ournalists, camera
men, clerical staff etc). The idea is to create a union that will
include all workers, regardless their position, from cleaners to
j ournalists, and their labor contract, from full- time employ
ees to "freelancers." Recently they tried to coordinate their
activity with that of the laid off workers of the newspaper
Elef theros Typos.
On December 23rd in Petralona, an old working class
neighborhood in Athens, a Bulgarian immigrant cleaner, Ko
stantina Kuneva, the General Secretary of the Janitors Union
(PEKOP-All Attica Union for Janitors and Home Service
Personnel), was the victim of an attack using sulfuric acid by
goons of the bosses while returning home from her workplace,
a railroad station of the ISAP public utility (Athens-Pireaus
Electric Trains) . She was seriously wounded, losing the use of
LC eye and of her vocal chords and she is still in the hospital.
It's worth mentioning that she had also visited the occupation
of GSEE since her previous activities had led her to a confron
tation with the leadership of the confederation bureaucracy.
The attack on Konstantina took place a couple of days after
the end of the occupation of GSEE and that was one of the
reasons why there was such an unprecedented mobilization of
people. After the attack, a "solidarity assembly" was formed.
Using direct action tactics they organized a series of actions
(occupation of the headquarters of ISAp sabotage of the ticket
machines so that the commuters could travel free, demos) . The
assembly, despite its internal divisions, played a vital role in
inspiring a remarkable solidarity movement that expanded
throughout Greece demanding not only the prosecution of
the perpetrators and the instigators but also the abolition of
subcontracting altogether. We should add here that outsourc
ing cleaning services has become the norm for public sector's
companies and these companies do not hire cleaners any more.
Contractors are now the employers of thousands of j anitors,
mainly women immigrants, who clean hundreds of public
utilities, hospitals, railroad stations, schools, universities and
other public buildings. However, regarding the character of
cleaning sector j obs, these were always precarious and until
recently it was regarded as normal and natural for a woman
to be a j anitor or home service worker. Moreover, by equat
ing subcontracting or precariousness in general with "slavery"
the maj ority of this solidarity movement, mainly comprised
of leftist union activists, is trying to equate certain struggles
against precariousness-ne of the main forms of the capitalist
restructuring in this historical moment-with generl political
demands of a social- democratic content regarding the State as
a "reliable" and preferable employer to private subcontractors
and thus putting the question of the abolition of wage labor
per se aside.
Obedience stopped, life is magical
More ol d peopl e and l efti sts are comi ng
cl oser to the anarchi st i deas
Elina: An unemployed anarchist from Agrnio
Agrinio is a small town of 80,000 people with a radical history
in western Greece. The anarcho- syndicalists were very active
here, and there was a maj or tobacco strike in the '20s. And
this is the city where the Anarchist Union started. I think that
was the ' 70s but I' m not very good with the chronology. The
anarchists in Agrinio thought that all the anarchists should
come together, and also that they should be more social. This
was at the time when other anarchists were taking up arms,
like ELA (Popular Revolutionary Struggle) . But the Anarchist
Union failed. They had their assembly in Agrinio and Athens
and Thessa10niki but in the other cities it stopped working.
Later there was the Anarchist Federation of West Greece, it
was mostly anarchist- communists, and Agrinio participated,
but this also failed.
There were riots in Agrinio in December, of course. There
were demonstrations with four hundred, fve hundred people,
and they smashed the banks. Lots of high school students
participated, as well as the anarchists, including anarchists of
the older generations and from the villages around Agrinio.
270 I
We are an Image from the Future
This is what made December a rebellion, the fact that it came
to all the small cities and the villages. Otherwise it would have
j ust been a huge demonstration, a huge riot, in Athens.
Most people, normal people, were glad when they saw the
smashed banks. My aunt went out to see the broken windows
because she said it made her happy. She was calling all her
friends on her mobile phone, saying "They smashed all the
banks here! And here too! " all full of j oy. But in a small village
you can't smash so many things since you usually know the
person who owns it. Because of this there were some conficts
between Alpha Kappa and the Black Bloc anarchists here,
with some people telling others not to smash certain shops.
After December you can see the difference. The thing
didn't stop with the demonstrations. Right after December
antiauthoritarians of Agrinio made a new social center, it's the
second one, there already was one anarchist social center. The
antiauthoritarian group Aura of Freedom, along with a cul
tural hip- hop collective, rented a building, painted it, fxed it
up, and started hosting events. And some of the young people
who became active in December are still participating. But
it's not j ust young people, some older people are participat
ing as well. A colleague of my mother teaches classes in the
new social center. There are also two new pirate radio stations,
Radiourgia and Kokkinoskouftsa. Kokkinoskouftsa means
"Little Red Riding Hood, " actually. It was the name of the
pirate radio station here in the '80s and '90s so in a way it's
been reincarnated in the struggles of our times.
I think the maj or result of December in Agrinio and
maybe other villages and towns in the countryside has been
that more women and men in their 30s and 40s, people from
the generations of our grandfathers and our fathers, and also
more leftists, are coming nearer to the anarchist and antiau
thoritarian ideas.
Now I real l y know what terrori sm means
Lito: The Exarchia resident who flmed the killing
of Alexis and became the principal witness in the
trial of the two cops responsible
I remember telling myself some years ago that I lived in a
military camp, with all the police around Exarchia. Now I
say that I live in a war zone. What happened in December, I
never believed that it could happen. For me, there was always
a limit, a fnal line, and when the police crossed it, there was a
qualitative change. Everything changed. Everyone understood
that there was a certain horizon to the situation and beyond
it everything was different. We have passed this horizon. It is
not a confict anymore, it is war.
For a month after the killing I felt rage, but also an unbe
lievable silence. It was the frst time in ten years that Exarchia
has been silent, dead silent. It was very disconcerting. Now
I've had some time to think about everything but in the very
beginning I was completely exhausted from talking about it,
all the questions. I put my video on Indymedia and from
there the TV stations picked it up. Soon j ournalists were call
ing me constantly, and I was seeing my video everywhere. For
the frst few months I was in a very strange state. I was never
calm. I was in a state of shock for a month. Now I feel more
Obedience stopped, l ife is magical
better, but whenever I hear a certain sound . . . the stun grenade
that the police threw a few minutes before they killed Alexis
triggered a security alarm in one of the shops, or maybe a car.
So during the entire video you hear this security alarm going
off in the background. I kept seeing my video everywhere, it
was on the TV and everything, and when I hear this specifc
alarm on the other side of the street, the feeling of the shoot
ing comes back to me. I really want to go ask them to change
the sound of their alarm because all the memories come back
to me. It's unbelievable that a sound brings up these feelings
it took me one month to recover from.
The assassination of Alexis was the last straw. There is
no more tolerance for the police. The killing was so outra
geous, so far beyond the limits. The people reacted and still
continue to react. They are empowered by the rage that was
expressed at the time of the killing. There were many other
problems too, besides police brutality. These problems con
tinue, but the people don't tolerate them, not anymore.
I don't know if Exarchia is more autonomous now than
before. The people, the ones who are active, they try. And
me, I always feel autonomous, but now I really know what
terrorism means. From the day they killed Alexis to the day
when the guerrilla group attacked the police, the police did
not appear on the corner where Alexis was killed. But when
Revolutionary Struggle made this attack, the frst thing the
police did was to occupy the spot where Alexis was shot, and
they stayed there for twenty-four hours. This was the riot
We are an Image from the Future
police, with helmets, guns, everything. And when they came
at midday, I was on the balcony and one of them looked up at
me. I think because during this whole period the telephone
was ringing, j ournalists were calling and trying to fnd out
where this video had come from. When the one cop looked
up at the balcony, I gestured like, what do you want? And he
jabbed the guy at his side and pointed me out, and I felt
completely terrifed by the way they were looking at me. That
night, I heard some neighbors talking, and then crying, and
the cops were sitting right on the spot where Alexis died. I
came out to see what was happening, and because I couldn't
see I peered out discreetly over my balcony and one of the
cops saw me. I felt terrifed so I crept back inside but the cop
came down below my balcony and made eye contact with me.
I thought they would raid my apartment. So I went to my
neighbor's house. I was t errifed.
This is what I call terrorism. It's impossible to j ust sit
on my balcony looking down into the street. Another time, in
February I think, there was a car burning down in the street,
and the police again came and looked up at me, and I got
scared and went back inside my house. The policeman shout
ed up to me, So you're hiding, eh? And then I realized, What
the Juck, what is happening, why do I hide? So I went back to
the balcony and I started taking photographs. And the police
started taking photographs of me.
You can see everything from this window. That's why I' m
thinking of putting a camera there, for the policemen and also
for these young people who do many things without think
ing about why they do it. Because everywhere there are a few
people who can make a small mistake and everyone else has
to live with the consequences. Some people say that this is
Exarchia, the only thing to do is to burn the shops. But this is
not the truth. There are many possible reactions outside the
dogma of burning and smashing.
So I' ll be in the trial of the policeman who killed Alexis.
I was worrying about how I' ll feel toward the defense lawyer,
because he's defending a very bad person. Then I started to
worry about the outcome of the trial. If this cop ends up with
only two or three years in j ail, I don't know how I would react.
How do you react to the decision of a trial like this? Many
terrifying things are happening, we hear about them and see
them on the news, but it is very different when you see it with
your own eyes. It is not just words, it is reality for you, there
is no doubt, there is no distance from it. The assassination is
such an absolute truth, it is like if you stole something from
me, in front of my eyes, and then tell me it never existed. It
is not something you j ust heard about from somewhere else.
And I fear very much that if they fnd this cop not guilty,
maybe my reaction will get me thrown in j ail. I think about
this all the time, as I prepare to testify.
Obedience stopped, life is magical
3
4
2
Many people remained active i n the months following December. These struges kept the revolt alive throughout 2009.
Endless meetings, assemblies, gatherings, paries, and film screenings coincided with arson, solidarit demonstrations,
antifascist strugle, occupation of squats, and strugles around sexualit and the legalization of drugs.
1. Occupation of the television station. The banner reads: "Stop Watching. Come out i n the Streets. Freedom for all of us.
Liberation for those Arrested:'
2. -3. Syndicalist activist Konstantina Kuneva. Before and after she was attacked and burned.
4. Attack on the national train company-Kuneva's main employer-that resulted i n 16 million Euros i n damages.
5. Demo attended by anarchists, communists, autonomists, and Leftists i n support of Kuneva.
6. Occupation of the General Confederation of Greek Workers bUildi ng. The banners read: "General Stri ke. Occupation.
Self-organization of the Workers Will Be the Graveyard of the Bosses. Workers Re-Occupation of Syndicalism:'
5
273
6
274
We are an Image from the Future
7
8
10
7. Anarchists orgnized demonstrations in front of prisons and government bUildings. Keeping up pressure until all
arrested were freed. Banner reads: "Not Even One Step Back: Liberation for al l Prisoners of the Insurrection."
8. The Assembly of Health blockaded a hospital reception, arguing for free health care for all.
9. Patision Avenue park slated for demolition by the mayor of Athens but reopened and rebuilt by locals. The new,
self -oranized park is still there.
10. Demonstration in support of the arrested.
11. A local newspaper office in the countryside. It was attacked for humiliating the movement.
9
11
1 2
I
1 3
1 2 . Farmers from Crete fight with pol i ce i n the port of Pi reus.
1 3. Demonstration i n Thessal oni ki . The banner reads: "Magistrates, Politi ci ans, Cops, Academi cs,
Contractors, Journal i sts, Bosses : Keep Your Hands Of Our Lives! "
1 4. The occupi ed Opera Hal l . Lively assembl i es took place here covering the arts, phi l osophy, and
pol itics.
Obedience stopped, life is magical
1 4
We are an Image from the Future
1 6
15
15.-1 6. Daily assemblies created a public space for thought and action . .
BREAKI NG NEW GROUND
Chronology: March-October 2009
March 7: In Exarchia, 4,000 people rip down the wall
around a vacant lot destined to become a parking garage,
tear up the asphalt with j ackhammers, plant trees, and create
a free park ffty meters away from the spot where Alexis was
killed.
Marh 9: In separate incidents in Athens, a group of
youths smash two banks in the middle of the afternoon, while
early in the morning a homemade bomb explodes outside a
Citibank branch, causing extensive damages and no inj uries.
Marh 13: Fifty masked anarchists smash dozens of
luxury shops in Kolonaki, the wealthy downtown district
of Athens, in broad daylight, distributing fyers in solidarity
with anarchist prisoner Yiorgos Voutsis-Votzatzis, and disap
pearing before police arrive.
Mid-March: Spectacularizing the Kolonaki attacks, the
media go into overdrive presenting the anarchists as a threat
to order. The government announces several new security
measures, including announced changes in the law to aid the
criminalization of protests, the arrival of police consultants
from Scotland Yard, and the creation of Delta Force, a new
police corps that will patrol on motorbikes and function as a
rapid response force.
Marh 21: After hearing about the assassination of pris
oner activist Katerina Goulioni, women prisoners in Chania
and Thiva revolt and occupy their prisons.
March 30: The various squatted parks, social centers, and
assemblies of Athens convoke thousands of people in a maj or
protest march, starting at the new N avarinou Park in Exarchia
and ending at City Hall.
March 31: Anarchists occupy the President's Offce of
Athens University at Panepistimio, hanging a huge banner
from the front of the building calling for solidarity with all
squatted and self- organized spaces throughout the country,
on and off the universities, as well as for university asylum.
April 1: Kouzina Collective appears in Athens, serving
free food in public. The same day, in Iraklion, three hundred
people hold a demonstration in solidarity with those arrested
in December.
April 2: During the national general strike day, 50,000
people demonstrate in the streets of Athens while maj or
demonstrations take place in other cities. In the middle of
the demo a group of anarchists smash the Athens offces of
OIKOMET while members of Kuneva's union, with protec
tion from anarchists and autonomists, occupy the offces of
the train company, forcing them to cancel their contract with
OIKOMET and give the cleaners permanent contracts di
rectly with the public transportation company.
April 4: Members of the neighborhood assembly of Pe
tralona (Athens) along with the Assembly for Health, occupy
PIKPA, a two- storey former hospital, in order to establish a
social center that will be used for many events and as a facility
to provide free health care for the neighborhood.
278
We are an Image from the Future
April 15: The British College in Thessaloniki is attacked
with a gas canister bomb in solidarity with the people arrested
and repressed in London and Nottingham around the G20
protests, during which one older demonstrator was killed by
police violence.
April 1618: A string of arson attacks in Xanthi targets
the house of a police informant, the ATM of the central bank,
the luxury car of the city's bishop, and the car of the chief
justice of the city.
April 25: 5,000 people take over a pedestrian street below
the Acropolis for a DIY punk concert, one of several massive
public, open air free festivals, concerts, and illegal raves to oc
cur throughout the spring and summer.
April 28: 3,000 people march from the occupied park in
Exarchia to the occupied park on Patision in opposition to the
new anti-protest law criminalizing wearing masks or insult
ing police offcers. Along the route, many CCTV cameras and
banks are smashed. One thousand people, mostly anarchists,
march in Thessaloniki in support of the occupations.
M 9: The neo- nazi group Golden Dawn, together with
the MAT hold a protest against immigrants in Omonia. An
archists who try to attack the protest are pushed back by riot
police, and fghting occurs around the Polytechnic.
May 12: A branch of Eurobank in Athens is destroyed
by a bomb. The same day, an arson attack targets the national
electricity company in response to the deaths of two workers.
May 18: A barrage of simultaneous arsons in eleven dif
ferent areas of Athens target a shop selling police uniforms,
a police training school, a surveillance systems corporation
that works with police, two shops that sell guns to police,
the central offce of a private security company in a wealthy
neighborhood, a Suzuki exhibition that provides the police
with motorbikes, two private motorbikes and two private
cars of cops parked outside their houses, and an exhibition
of Skoda, a company that provides the police with vehicles.
The communique was signed by "Enfamed Shadows." In the
preceding days, similar attacks also occur in Thessaloniki and
in Hania.
May 20: Police raid a cafe in Athens where many migrants
gather. During the raid they tear up a Koran. Over the next
two days immigrants organize several demonstrations and at
tack the police with stones. Hundreds participate, and police
respond with tear gas. Sixteen are arrested, one, a Syrian im
migrant, for throwing a molotov at a police station. Seventy
fve cars, fve shops, and one bank are damaged or destroyed.
May 27-31: 40,000 people participate in B- Fest, a week
long festival on the campus of the University for Fine Arts
that includes concerts, raves, and a multi- day international
conference that features anarchist and autonomist speakers
from other countries, such as Noam Chomsky (via video
feed), Bifo, Class War editors, and Michael Albert.
May 28: The Anti -sexist Faction commits an arson at
tack against two high- end brothels, "not for them [the sex
workers] but for us." Their communique also mentions the
traffcking of women.
May 29: The offces of fascist party LAOS are smashed
in the city of Pyrgos. Similar attacks against LAOS are car
ried out in several other cities over these weeks, accompanied
by accusations that they coordinate with paramilitary groups
inside the police to repress the social movements.
June: Fascists in the Athens neighborhood of Aghios Pan
te1eimonos stir up racism against the strong immigrant pres
ence in a local park, situated near a church that was giving aid
to undocumented people. The fascists instigate a right- wing
neighborhood assembly that occupies the park and kicks out
the immigrants, protected by the riot police and supported
by the Minister of Public Order. Shortly after the Minister
speaks at the right- wing assembly, fascists attack the nearby
anarcho-punk squat Villa Amalias with frebombs. On the 9th
of June, anarchists manage to fght of the fascists and open
the playground, but they are subsequently attacked by police.
They injure one cop, but fve are arrested.
June 4: A police station in northern Athens is attacked by
ten hooded anarchists with molotovs. Meanwhile three banks
in different parts of Athens are frebombed at the same time.
June 7: Early in the morning, a group of hooded assailants
attack a police station in Patras with molotovs and escape on
motorcycle.
June 8: A bank in Thessaloniki is torched with a gas can
ister bomb.
Breaking new ground
June 11: About twenty hooded anarchists attack a group
of police in Exarchia with molotovs and escape on foot.
June 1 7: In Athens the Sect of Revolutionaries assassi
nates a policeman who was guarding the home of a prosecu
tion's witness in the terror trial of members of ELA. In a sub
sequent communique, they threaten to target politicians and
journalists, and include "everyday life" and "normal people"
in a long catalogue of enemies of the revolution.
July 2-4: In response to the collaboration between the
State and the neo- nazis, the Interior Ministry, the political
offce of the ex - Minister of Public Order, the offces of an
advisory think tank for the military, the Institute for Im
migration Policy think tank, and the car of the president of
the Constitutional Court are targeted in a barrage of arson
attacks claimed by "Combat Groups for the Elimination of
the Nation."
July 7: 3,000 people in Athens and one thousand people
in Thessaloniki march in solidarity with immigrants. Fascists
attempt to attack the Athens march with molotovs. Demon
strators blockade Patision Avenue outside ASOEE, burning
dumpsters and fghting with police and fascists into the
night.
July 8: The last remaining prisoner of December,
Thodoros Iliopoulos, is denied bail on the grounds that he is
an anarchist and a " danger to democracy." He goes on hunger
strike in protest.
280
We are an Image from the Future
July 10: A riot police bus is fred upon in Athens, forcing
the cops to abandon the bus and run for their lives.
July II: The Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire carries out a
bomb attack against the home of a former interior minister and
warns that the new national intelligence chief could be next.
Dozens of fre bombings have already been claimed by this
anarchist group. In contrast, most other anarchist fre bomb
ings and attacks were claimed by groups that disappeared
after signing their name to only one or two communiques.
July 12: A large refugee camp in Patras is mysteri
ously burned to the ground during a police operation. The
city subsequently bulldozes the remains, preventing its
reconstruction.
July 14: Villagers near Chaldiki block the road to Scou
ries, which a maj or gold-mining corporation wants to exploit
and destroy. In Athens, protesters attack the central tower of
the National Telecommunications Company with black paint,
with the support of many workers there, after the company
sues the Polytechnic University for hosting the Athens Indy
media server. Protesters claim the company is taking cues
from LAOS politicians who want to gag radical dissent.
July 22: Police defuse a bomb placed by the Conspiracy
of the Cells of Fire in front of the Chilean consulate in Thes
saloniki, in memory of Mauricio Molares Duarte who had
recently died while carrying a bomb meant for a police target
in Santiago.
August: Dozens of actions, from gas canister bombings to
radio station occupations, occur all across Greece in solidarity
with the last prisoner of December, Thodoros Iliopoulos, who
is still on hunger strike. Thodoros is subsequently released.
Also, the occupied social centers all across Greece continue to
maintain and also defend themselves, and the occupied parks
expand, with the planting of more trees and fowers, the con
struction of playgrounds and tile mosaic walkways, becoming
more beautiful than any park the State has ever produced . . . .
August 10: Eco-anarchist group "Animals' Revenge" res
cues 7,000 mink from two different fur farms in Kozani, in
northern Greece, causing hundreds of thousands of euros in
damages.
August 21: Maj or forest fres begin j ust north of Athens
and burn for four days, destroying 40,000 hectares of forest,
olive grove, and shrub land. Many people understand that
these fres are set intentionally by real estate developers.
August 2531: Anarchists and leftists hold a No Border
Camp, amidst an extreme police presence, at Mytilini, on the
island of Lesvos, near Turkey.
September 2: Revolutionary Struggle bombs the Athens
Stock Exchange, calling in a bomb threat frst to avoid casual
ties. The building is heavily damaged by the huge blast.
September 5: Athens police chase some people painting
graffti into Exarchia, where a crowd gathers attempting to
stop the arrests. Delta Force arrives and they attack anarchists
throughout the neighborhood, yell at neighbors, smash things
in the occupied park, and generally behave like hooligans.
They arrest fve people though all are later released with
charges dropped. Police kick one of the detainees until they
rupture his lung.
September 23: A suspected cell of the Conspiracy of the
Cells of Fire is caught by police in Athens after the explosion
of a small bomb in front of the house of an ex- minister of
fnance and PASOK member, j ust days before PASOK wins
the national elections. Three men and one woman are arrested
and given terrorism charges. One is released on provisional
liberty awaiting trial, with the terrorism charges dropped. Six
other people are wanted by police. In the months since De
cember, the group had claimed responsibility for 1 60 attacks.
October 2: The Conspiray of the Cells of Fire take re
sponsibility for a small bomb placed close to the stage where
the current prime minister and candidate for ND is giving a
maj or public speech, j ust two days before the election.
October 4: PASOK win the national elections, which
had been called largely in response to the political crisis of
legitimacy exacerbated by December, and the December re
volt proves to be a maj or election topic. 30% of eligible voters
abstain (compared with 26% in 2007), PASOK takes 43. 9%
of the votes, ND takes 33. 5% (their lowest polling ever),
KKE takes 7. 5%, LAOS takes 5.6%, SYRIZA takes 4. 6%.
The Green Party, with only 2. 5%, do not win enough votes to
enter Parliament.
Breaking new ground
October 7: Three days after the elections, prime minister
elect Giorgos Papandreou (son of the legendary former Prime
Minister) says in a public speech to his new ministers, "We
must be like antiauthoritarians in authority . . . our main target
is to bring equality to all genders, races, economic classes,
and nationalities, bringing together all diferences, " revealing
both how much the real antiauthoritarians had infuenced
the political structure, and also hinting at the strategy of the
Socialists for recuperating the revolt.
Meanwhile, anarchists and the extreme Left riot nearby
in Istanbul, Turkey, in protest of the International Monetary
Fund, while World Bank president Robert Zoellick declares
an end to the days of elitist decision- making without input
from developing countries, mirroring the PASOK rhetoric.
October 8: At midday, about thirty koukoulofori in Exar
chia smash out the windows of a half dozen corporate targets,
including the National Bank of Athens and a fascist bookstore,
as well as a few luxury vehicles, disappearing before the arrival
of Delta Force, units of which had been parked nearby.
That night, hundreds of police invade the neighbor
hood, searching some 200 people, eighty-one of whom are
taken to the police station and eight of whom are arrested
(for poverty- related crimes) . They also search sixteen auto
mobiles and twenty-six cafes. The next day, the new minis
ter of public order, who some years earlier was responsible
for torturing suspects in order to bust and imprison several
members of 1 7 November, says on television that the purpose
We are an Image from the Future
of the raids is not to go after the anarchists but to arrest the
vandals and hooligans and establish police authority in Ex
archia. The massive and aggressive police presence, raids, and
arrests continue. The last time it was like this, recall the old
timers, the Socialists were also in power; it was after the 1 989
riots sparked by the acquittal of the cop who killed anarchist
Michalis Kaltezas, and then the police occupation of Exarchia
lasted for three years.
October 10: In the afternoon, several hundred residents
of Exarchia and anarchists hold a protest against the police
occupation, angrily confronting a line of riot police guarding
a government building, but deciding not to attack. The neigh
bothood assembly of Exarchia has decided to permanently
resist the repressive measures. At night, on Stref Hill above
Exarchia, four thousand young people take over the park for
an unpermitted free festival with DJs, VJs, and bands. At
one point Delta Force makes a threatening show of force but
leaves without provoking a fght.
The neighborhood assembly continues holding protests
twi ce a week, bringing thousands of people together to march
from Exarchia Square to Parliament and back, vowing to
continue until the police presence is removed. The struggle
continues . . .
Al exis Grigoropoulos Park
On Saturday, March 7th, 1 , 000 people converged on a vacant
lot that for years had been surrounded by metal construction
barriers several meters high, stealing the space from public
view and public use. Going on ffteen years, the city govern
ment had promised to turn the lot into a park and still had
done nothing. Recently the owner of the property, which was
valued at 9 million euros, decided to retract their offer to al
Iow a park there and were formulating plans for construction.
A confuence of neighborhood residents and anarchists from
all over Athens acted frst. In one day they tore down the
metal barriers and began the process of creating a park, rip
ping up the asphalt, building benches and planting trees. One
of the participants tells with glee: "For years there had been
these walls here, no one was used to thinking that there was
an empty space behind them. And the day we tore it down,
you see neighbors walking by, they come upon this open space
and start looking around them, checking the street signs
they were lost in their own neighborhood. We transformed
this place:' A visitor exclaimed: "You know what the best
part is? It's seeing all the old people look at the park and how
happy they are." "No," interrupted a Greek anarchist. "The
best thing is that we fucked the city out of 9 million euros."
We interene in the daily flow of things to
interrupt it
Daredevil : An active participant in Exarchia'
new squatted park
Before December I wasn't directly involved. I followed what
was happening and went to some protests but there was
no strategy. It was j ust solidarity for other people's actions.
There's a lot of small anarchist groups that do a lot of actions
and they created the conditions for December to happen, but
what happened exceeded these groups. They made some sort
of a network and this network was very helpful, at least in the
beginning. They started by occupying the national university,
the economic school, the law school. They provided some sort
of a basis for people to come and meet. The anarchists were
more involved and they were more active before December.
They also had street knowledge, they know about confict and
fghting. And the young kids, they picked it up very fast and
in two days they were experts too but it was vital that this
knowledge was present beforehand.
Two crucial events happened during this time: the death
of the young kid and the attack on the lady, Kuneva. For Greek
standards this was very brutal. It's unheard of. A lot of people
Breaking new ground
felt like they had their backs up against the wall. That's why
we saw such a powerful eruption of outrage.
At some point we formed a group, but this group didn't
have an identity. It was part of our strategy not to have a name,
not to have anyone speak for the group. I operated together
with other people but I cannot speak for anyone else. What
was important is this decision that we took not to have a name
or identity.
Often the strategy of the State and the authorities, is to
separate the different groups, to differentiate anarchists from
students from workers, so they can play one group against
the other. Or they can represent a particular group as, for
example, artists, so everyone who is not an artist, it doesn't
involve them. But when we did things that got in the news
they didn't know how to label us-students, anarchists, youth.
I think that this has worked very well.
Sometimes we organized things in cooperation with a
group that already existed, a group that was more visible,
more broad. For example here there is a group of residents.
With the park we did all the work but they took all the credit.
This was a civic group, more open, so they couldn't be tagged
as anarchist or whatever. This worked well for us. We did this
a couple times, three times, with a big festival in Exarchia,
for example.
We don't want to be in touch with the media, so we get
in touch with more mainstream groups, and they can get
in touch with the media. For me this strategy has worked.
We are an Image from the Future
What's new is that now a lot of people are united and doing
things, but this is still mostly around action. There are a lot of
ideological diferences but there is some sort of unity around
the action. Like for example here at the park. I think this is
a new development, since December. This is a small country
and everyone knows one another. The different groups have
some solidarity but also they have differences, they were frag
mented. But now you have osmosis, people going from one
group to another. I t's much broader.
In December we talked with some people about this
strategy of autonomous zones and I think a lot of people liked
the idea. There's a lot of new squats, a new discussion about
this situation. It also happened after the student riots of 1 99 1 :
there were lots of occupations and now it's happening again.
But there are many diferent approaches. For example there
was the occupation of the National Opera, that lasted for ten
days. I t was very big. And by Greek standards it was a very
open squat. Lots of people came in who wouldn't feel comfort
able going to other political spaces. There were people from
the whol e political spectrum. Lots of discussions, it b quite
interesting. At the beginning you saw they all came from dif
ferent backgrounds but slowly a connection began to form.
The park is wonderful. It's very open, anyone can ap
proach it, there's no inside and outside. In the Opera there
was the dynamic of one big group using the place and one
smaller group that ran the place. There was a tension.
The starting point for our strategy was parenvoli, inter
vening and breaking the normal routine. We intervene in
the daily fow of things to interrupt it. The frst intervention
lasted one minute, then ten days, and now a more perma
nent interruption, with this park. These actions were done
by different people, but what's important is that it goes from
smaller to more permanent. It's part of the strategy that the
same group of people doesn't do everything, so more people
can participate and more people can relate. And the authori
ties never know who is doing it. One minute they thought it
was fourteen-year- old kids and the next minute they thought
it was veteran anarchists.
To occupy the park we worked with a civic group. They
had been thinking about it for a long time, and for 6 months
already they had been pressuring the municipality and the
owner of the lot, which is the Union of Mechanical Engineer
ing, to turn this place into a park. Some of our people who
also participated in this civic group decided that it would be
a good idea to make the park ourselves. I n the beginning we
didn't have this whole thing in mind, we thought maybe we
would just make some holes and put in some trees, and you
can see now how it's grown. But this is only because people
put in so much work. They put in time, brought tools, and
did so much. The park built itself. Some people provided the
spark, and so many more people showed up and made it hap
pen. And now it operates through its open assembly.
If someone comes along, uninitiated in this way of doing
things, of organizing assemblies, he would think it is com
pletely chaotic-nothing could possibly come of this. But the
truth is that from this seemingly chaotic environment a lot of
things can happen and they work really well. They're well or
ganized, no mistakes, no big conficts. This is a lesson for new
people but also for us, to believe more and more in this way
of organizing and this way of acting. The idea that you don't
need some sort of leader to tell you where to go and what
to do and who is responsible. You must prove this through
action, not j ust say leadership is superfuous but prove it in
action. And I think that on many occasions since December
we have seen this.
Where do we go from now? There's this dilemma: do we
do things that bring in more people or do we do the things
that we like and if other people like it too, so be it, something
like that. But I' m not sure how to do it. We need some kind
of combination. We should hope that the things we like and
do well appeal to other people also. Because we don't want to
dilute our principles or our activities. There is this idea that
we have to create the life that we want, parallel to a direct
confict with the authorities. We must build a new reality on
the ground, of what we like and how we want to live. Like this
park: we have to build it ourselves and organize it in some
autonomous way, period.
In my view, all the diferent aspects are related. Hitting
the police, throwing molotov cocktails, these are diferent from
Breaking new ground
creating a park and diferent people participate, but they ft
well together. 1 t's a multifaceted struggle. The strategy of the
opposite side tries to distinguish between everything, to turn
you against the others. But the same people, diferent people,
same time, different times, it doesn't matter. We're all together.
The big question we face now with the park, is that if
you take the best scenario, that the municipality is willing to
compromise with the owners and give them some money so
that the park can legally remain, then the municipality takes
ownership of the park. How can you guarantee the autonomy
of the park so it doesn't just become another city park? This is
uncharted territory. I 'm sure that in other times and in other
countries there were similar experiences so we must look to
history. We are formulating a new language to describe these
experiments. Currently we lack the means to communicate
what is happening. And there are new challenges. Hopefully
we'll learn from the past or create new ideas of how to do this,
how to guarantee the autonomy of the park.
An interesting idea is what has happened in the West, the
creation of social centers that provide social services. This is
a huge proj ect. It takes lots of money and infrastructure and
expertise. But if we can take this on and make it run autono
mously and keep it open to the people it's going to be good.
It's going to be really good.
\
2
85
We are an Image from the Future
The House of Maria Kallas
"The biggest expectations lie ahead of us and we fnd our
selves in the j oyous position of seeking ways to drift along
with them."
At 8a.m., March 1 9th, dozens of comrades occupied a
building on the corner of Patision Ave and Skaramaga Street,
the former house of Maria Kallas, right between the Athens
Polytechnic and the Economics University in Athens. Work
inside started immediately. A soundsystem was quickly set up
and the subversive "Carmen, " sang by Kallas, echoed across
Patision Ave. There are many people in the building, the
number increasing by the hour. You can come to the beautiful
building and gaze at the sea from its rooftop.
The new Patision Commune is here. Strong, sober and
uncrushable.
Carrying on ...
We are some people who met on the streets and in the
occupations during the events of December's revolt-events
that derive from historical, class, social, and dispositional
causes and of course, from the assassination of Alexis by the
cop Korkoneas. December was a peak moment, a spark in
the powder keg, upon which the peaceful social consensus
is based, an accelerating factor leading to an unprecedented
social explosion. An explosion that shattered the suffocat
ing normality of our lives. The feast of December blew apart
individualization and the sealed- off private sphere in our lives.
A joyous, collective, and wild "we" poured out on the streets.
It attacked democracy and its guards; abstaining from any
demand or petition, it self- organized everyday life within oc
cupied buildings. It articulated the sharpest critique against
the monologue of the commodity, destroying and looting its
temples, redistributing social wealth, halting consumption in
the very center of the city. It disproved the ambitions of the
leftist wanna-be intermediaries, letting them stammer socio
logical crap on the TV I t canceled out the convulsive muddle
of the j ournalists, making it clear that whoever wanted to
understand what was going on only needed to get out of their
homes. It abolished, even if temporarily, gendered ard spec
tacular roles. Thousands of people acted as one body, during
events where what mattered was what was happening, not
who was doing it.
And on the other hand: the State, the bosses, and those
with a strong interest in everything staying the same. From
the moment they managed to regroup they were anything
but spectators. They sought a return to normality by using all
means at their disposal. From riot police and paramilitary thugs
to the sociologists and sensitive artists. From talk of extrem
ists, gangs, saboteurs, Greek- haters, all the way to the peaceful
citizens' claim to the right to celebrate their Christmas. From
the hypocritical criticism of the adults to their kids, to the
arrest of 265 rebels and the incarceration of sixty-fve. They
did whatever they could do, in other words, for December to
turn into a "sad bracket" where in the end the extremists were
punished and those who followed were admonished.
Carrying on,
The meaning of December grows increasingly important.
Conditions remain polarized and confrontational on both
sides. Only within the context of December's upheaval can
one understand events like the acid attack against syndicalist
K. Kuneva; the attempted massacre, by hand- grenade, at the
migrants' space as well as the proclamations for the restruc
turing of the legal and military arsenal of the State, the most
recent attempt to awaken reactionary social forces.
At the same time, widened social groupings are con
stantly developing actions, practices, and a voice, using De
cember's events as a clear starting and reference point. From
the railway stations to the centers of bureaucratic syndicalism,
from workplaces to the hospital receptions, from parks and
neighborhoods to the spectacle's temples, self- organized in
centives that are diffused, socialized, and enriched emerge as
tools, methods, and ways of reshaping reality and attacking
the capitalist relations and the democratic condition. These
elements constitute a wider process of radicalization that
seems to have time, continuity, and qualitative depth.
Carrying on,
To the extent that we constitute a product and a com
ponent of these conditions, we decided to reclaim the aban
doned building of 61 Patision Avenue and Skaramaga Street,
with the aim of grounding our intentions and desires; in order
Breaking new ground
to turn it into a base for the life that we want. To turn it into
an open social space where in a self-organized, comradely, and
collective way we will comprise a part of the conspiracy for the
destruction of this world. Against all forms of hierarchy and
authority, against all political and corporative intermediation,
against all spectacle- given roles and gendered divisions. And
in this attempt of ours we are looking for accomplices . . .
The revolt is already everywhere.
Solidarity to Konstantina Kuneva.
Immediate release of December's arrestees.
We are an I mage from the Future
The Assassinati on of Prisoner Katerina
Goulioni
According to IMC Athens, Katerina Goulioni, militant pris
oners' rights activist, has died in police custody this morning,
Wednesday March 1 8th. Katerina was one of the most active
prisoners in defence of prisoners' rights and was often put in
isolation.
Katerina was being transferred from the women's prison
at Thiva, where she was active in exposing bad conditions and
organizing against mistreatment and rape of prisoners, to a
prison on the island of Crete. Evidently she was on the same
boat to Crete as the fascist prisoner "Periandros." Periandros
had previously attacked the anarchist prisoner Yiannis Dimi
trakis; Yiannis is in the hospital but is doing well. Afterwards,
Periandros was attacked by other prisoners in his own cell, pos
sibly in retaliation, as Yiannis has much support on the inside.
In the boat from Pireaus to Crete, the guards forced Ka
terina to sit alone, ffteen seats behind the other prisoners,
hands tied behind her back. At 6a.m. in the morning Katerina
was found dead; according to testimonies by other prisoners,
she was badly beaten in the face.
The coroner refuses to give out any information before
the offcial report, though police already claimed Goulioni
died of a heart attack. Prisoners at Thiva, approximately 1 00
km northwest of Athens, quickly began a hunger strike.
Update: On Sunday the 22nd it was reported that the
women had set one wing of the prison on fre. Meanwhile
prisoners in the Hania prison on Crete also revolted and oc
cupied the prison, and 200 people in Korydallos prison staged
a solidarity protest. Simultaneously a radio station close to
Hania was occupied so solidarity messages from and for the
prisoners could be broadcast:
We the prisoners of the j uridical prison of Hania, today on
the 21 st of March 2009 and in reaction to the horrifc living
conditions, refused to enter our cells in order to demand the
immediate de- congestion of the prison. As a solution to this
problem, we seek the immediate transfer of the majority of us
to other prisons in the country. We ask, in other words, what
should be a given. What no one should be denied even for a
single moment: humane living conditions. Dignity!
How could we not act, when 1 57 of us are piled up in
a prison, a former Turkish command post, built to house 70,
when 57 of us are forced to live in a room designed for 20,
when to use a toilet we must book an appointment the day
before, when we join up two beds so that three of us can sleep
on them, when we have Ohot water and shiver, when VL shout
and nobody listens, when the State hides away from society an
untold truth!
Yet again the State becomes an accessory to murder when
facing the fact of an unavoidable revolt!
The threats issued against the revolt and the j udicial
condemnations directed against all of us who participate in it,
as insurgents, criminals, do not scare us. The State will always
meet with our opposition! Its terrorism shall not pass!
We voted unanimously and with enthusiasm that:
We will continue our struggle until we get a hearing with
a representative of the Ministry of Justice, in order for our
demands to be met.
-Prisoners of the Juridical Prison of Hania
Breaking new ground
Conversati on on a park bench with a ran
dom young person i n Thessal oni ki
"Excuse me, mil as agglika?"
"Nai, ligo. A little."
"Do you know what time it is?"
She shows me her watch. "How do you say .. quarter past
nine?"
"Yeah, that's right. Thanks. So are you a student here?"
"Yes."
"What do you study?"
" Economics."
"What do you think about the student occupations."
"It's okay, but I think it's hard to study here. I t's a lot of
work."
She didn't seem to have understood the question, so I
went in for some small talk. "Do you like Thessaloniki?"
"Yes, it's a great city."
"Are you from here?"
"No, I' m from Crete. Do you know where is Crete?"
"Yup. What's it like?"
"Very nice. I' m from Hania. It's a big city, not so big, but
it's alright. There are four big cities on Crete, Iraklion is the
biggest. I think it's the 3rd or 4th biggest of all Greece."
"My name's Alex, what's yours?"
"lonna. Nice to meet you."
290 I
We are an Image from the Future
" Nice to meet you too. So . . . " Small talk was harder than
it looks. I plunged back in to the topic of politics. "So, were
you in the student movement two years ago? You know, the
occupations, the katalipsi in 2006?"
"Ah no, I was in high school then."
"So what do you think about what happened I
December?"
"I t was awful! "
"What was awful about it?"
"The police shouldn't have the right to take someone's
life. It's very, very bad."
"That's funny, in my country someone would say it's aw
ful and they would be talking about burning the banks-they
would have forgotten about the boy getting killed."
"That's terrible."
"Yeah, really. So I bet you smashed like a hundred
banks."
"Ha hal No, but I went to the protests! "
"I like how everywhere there's graffti here for the
prisoners."
She looks to where I point out the slogan written for Po
likarpos Giorgiadis, from November 1 7th, on the wall across
from us.
"Yes, " she says with a little laugh I can't quite decipher.
"So do the anarchists here have much support? I mean
from normal people?"
"Mmmm, I don't know. I think yes among the young
people and not so much from other people."
"I went to the katalipsi at the university yesterday. They
had a talk about Konstantina Kuneva and the workers, that
was very interesting."
"Ah yes?"
"Do you know about that case?"
"A little."
"So . . . are there any good parties on the university this
weekend?"
Now there's no goi ng back
Sakis and Dina: Two older members of
Anti authori tarian Current i Thessaloniki
(speaking fom their own point of view and not as
spokespersons)
Yes, there was an occupation of the Theater School in Decem
ber but this action wasn't done by Alpha Kappa. Many of us
participated in it, but as individuals. There were also many
students. This was an occupation by everybody. We also par
ticipated in the protests. In the protests Alpha Kappa usually
goes as a tight bloc. We fght with the police but we don't run
around and scatter. We stay close, sometimes we link arms,
and this way we don't get arrested.
Since December, Greece is totally different, and the anar
chist movement here is totally diferent. Now there's no going
back. I t's as though in one month things moved forward fve
years. Greek society moved forward. We saw the anger that
everyone feels about the economic system, their jobs, the cri
sis. For 1 50 years it's been the same, the politicians just take
the money and do whatever they want, but now, for the frst
time, the Greek people have shown their anger. If I were a
ffteen-year- old in December it would affect me for the rest
of my life and even when I was thirty whenever I saw a cop or
Breaking new ground
some other authority fgure I would remember what kind of
person this really is.
The anarchists didn't expect the riots in December be
cause we know the Greek people and they're not such active
members of society. But we saw that there is hope, especially
in the young people, and this frightens the politicians. They
didn't expect twenty-fve cities to be burned at the same time.
They were already afraid of the anarchist and left movement,
but they never expected this.
The European politicians are very afraid. With the eco
nomic crisis, the European politicians believe that there will
be many Decembers, in all of Europe. They want to stop this
but they don't know how. I believe there will be many more
Decembers. I think for many people the crisis is bad, for ex
ample I'm in danger of losing my j ob, but I want the crisis to
continue, I want it to become ten times worse, because I think
it will bring more Decembers.
After December Alpha Kappa understood that we are at
a point where we have to set our sights higher. So now we are
moving out of this social center and we are moving to a much
larger building in the center, a rented building we will share
with other groups, with other Left collectives and individuals.
We have decided to do this because it is time to be open to
society and be a part of society rather than being like the old
closed anarchist groups all dressed in black.
There is also a new house that is squatted, right on Ni
kis Avenue, right on the sea front, a huge building, and there
We are an Image from the Future
are other new social centers that are beginning as well. The
government, I think, is very afraid. This high judge said
that it's time to put an end to these new occupations, and
he even named our new house which has only been squatted
one month. And he named Yfanet and Terra Incognita and
Delta and the others. He said the anarchists now have seven
spaces in Thessaloniki, we have to stop them or they'll take
over the whole city! So they are looking for legal ways to evict
us. I think they will try to start with the squatted buildings
because they can pretend it's a matter of legality, they can say
it's because those places are illegal, but their real reason is to
attack the movement.
But I don't think they will do it. I think they are bluffng.
They know we would defend these places. The State knows
we could start the war again, easy.
So, now you see we are putting all our things in boxes,
getting ready to move to the new social center. This place was
a good one, there were always lots of people coming in here
and we had lots of events. But it's time to move to a bigger
place, and cooperate with other groups. It's ti me to talk with
the people so they understand our analysis, and the words we
use, so they understand what we mean by internationalism,
our critique of money, our critique of the State, not to make
them anarchists but to make them active in society and make
them believe that things can change.
We decided to occupy the university rec
torate
Kostas: A student in the computer science
department involved in the occupation of the
administrative building at the Aristoteleous
V niverity of Thessaloni ki
After the attack on Konstantiva Kuneva we started building a
movement. Many students united and started printing papers
or sticking up posters all over the university. This university
contracts with the same company that employed Kuneva for
its own cleaning staf and other staff. We demanded that the
administration end its contract with that company and hire
on all the staff as permanent, contracted workers-essentially
a de-privatization. After one month of action, in March, we
decided to occupy the rectorate and establish a center for
our struggle. The student unions of three schools decided to
participate in the occupation: geology, biology, and electrical
engmeenng.
The staff have held four assemblies. In the frst week they
decided to initiate a partial strike, working four hours less per
day. We organized a march along with the syndicate and fve
hundred people came out in the center of Thessaloniki. On
Monday (March 30th) there is another staff assembly and
maybe they'll decide to go on strike. There's also d protest
march in Athens they may participate in.
So there is a direct link between this occupation and
December. Many students participated in December. At least
twenty schools out of about thirty were occupied by their
student unions all through December, and there were occu
pations of the theater school, the workers' center, and the high
schools. In the frst week the directors tried to close the uni
versities so the students couldn't gather and hold assemblies
but despite this decision and despite the police throwing tear
gas onto the campus, many students came and occupied their
schools. There were also many marches. The largest march
included approximately 1 2,000 people.
In the student occupations the extreme Left and the anar
chists started to win over the assemblies. There are many Left
organizations and anarchist organizations in the university,
but they are all united. Personally, I' m part of a small political
party, the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) . l In
my opinion the extreme Left groups and the anarchists have
been the only powers in December and in the student move
ment. The leftist political parties that are in Parliament are
not a part of this movement at all. They did not participate in
the movement and they are not welcome in it.
This unity and this tradition of student assemblies goes
back to the student occupation movement of 2006-2007.
This i s a small extra-parliamentary party, not to be confused with
KKE, the Communist Party of Greece that has seats in Parliament.
Breaking new ground
This very important movement created a culture of struggle.
Before then there were only one or two assemblies per year,
with no more than ffty students. In the 2006-2007 school
year there were ffteen to twenty assemblies with at least 400
students participating. The education reform passed in 2007
was forced through with great violence. The law changed how
asylum works in the universities. Before, the police could
come in only if the students agreed, hut now the director of
the university can call the police onto the campus without ap
proval from the students. So technically it's easy now for the
police to enter the campus-but not in reality because they're
afraid of how the students will respond.
Our director is threatening to call in the police to end this
occupation, but we will see what happens this week. We have
decided to defend the occupation no matter what.
The next steps for the movement in Greece is to address
the fnancial crisis: the basic salary, how many hours you
work, the pensions. Everything related to work, because the
people in Greece cannot afford basic things. Also some of the
immigrants live in very poor conditions. In December there
were many immigrants participating. And of course we have
no intention to stop fghting against the university privati
zation law, to force them to repeal the law. In all sectors of
society now, there is a tendency to participate in the struggles.
In January even the farmers started building a movement. I
think you will hear again from the Greek movement.
We are an Image from the Future
December is a result of social and political
processes going back many years, Part I I
Alkis: An anarchist, squatter, publisher, and worker
( Continued from Chapter 1, this interview expresses the continuity
from before December to afterwards) . . . As the events of Decem
ber showed, those who lost contact with society's most radical
and militant expressions were not the anarchists, but those
who were firting with the ideas and structures of authority,
claiming a role for themselves as representatives of the social
subj ects and mediators of social conficts.
Through a long-lasting process of struggle, which I brief
ly described before, anarchists and antiauthoritarians gained
a lot of ground in the consciousness of the people, something
that was not evident to everybody until December. Some
believe that the State lost lot of social ground during the
days of December. More accurately the State had lost a lot of
ground before the events of December, over a long period of
time. This was revealed during the revolt, with the participa
tion of crowds of people in actions that were considered, up to
that moment, exclusive to small groups of anarchists.
December of 2008 has a profound historical, political, and
social background that is connected to the history of struggles
over the last thirty years, and to the presence and participa
tion of anarchists inside those struggles. The anarchists' par
ticipation that is characterized by the praxis of social revolt
without mediators and without illusions for a change inside
the existing system, proposing self- organization against any
kind of hierarchical organization, proposing counter-violence
against State violence, and solidarity against individualization
and the artifcial divisions created by power.
Here we could talk about dynamic practices of struggle:
the clashes with the police and the occupations of buildings
(universities, schools, town halls and many others)-both
were appropriated by crowds of people in December. The
same happened with self-organization through open, anti
hierarchical assemblies that were created during the days of
December and afterwards. Those practices were avoided and
downgraded by the Left and the result is that the events sur
passed them.
However, even though December is a result of social
and political processes going back many years, and it does
have similarities and analogies with previous events, it still
surpasses them and expresses new situations, needs and de
sires, creating new potentials. Unlike past events, this time
they weren't limited or localized in a specifc time and space.
They were difused to numerous cities all over the country
and took many diferent forms, more or less violent but al
ways antagonistic to the State, based each time on the inspi-
ration and imagination, the inventiveness of the people who
participated.
Furthermore, it is a process that, because of its difusion
and its multiform character, doesn't seem to have an endpoint;
rather it seems to continue and renew itself, taking new forms
and bearing the promise of new social explosions in spite of
the current decline in violent events. Previously events mainly
concerned Greek youth but in December what spread all
across the country included people of many other nationali
ties, including migrants and refugees.
Dynamic methods of struggle and processes of self-orga
nization were adopted by many people, without representa
tives and without putting forward demands. December not
only continues a culture of political violence, it is also laying
down a new tradition of self-organization as an important
social urge, to organize from below. These processes of self
organization don't respond to murderous police violence as
their only objective but to all expressions of Authority: from
the way we live, the way we work, produce, consume, to issues
of health, the environment, everything. Every aspect of au
thority is a front of struggle for the people who self-organize
and fght from below, not always violently but almost always
antagonistically to the State.
The revolt also justifed certain positions inside the anti
authoritarian movement and disproved others. For example,
the notion that everything is under control, that manipulation
and control of people is so strong today that revolts are not
Breaking new ground
possible, or that society is dead, that it cannot produce anything
healthy and that we anarchists are alone against the State, was
disproved. December showed that social revolt is possible.
The subjects of the revolt are another important issue
surrounding December. There has been a lot of talk about
who rebelled and there has been a major effort by the media
and representatives of the political system to determine the
subjects of the revolt in order to write the history themselves.
They allege that it was a revolt of youth, specifcally Greek
youth, and especially high school students, based on the fact
that part of the revolt was mobilizations of high school stu
dents, who, on many occasions, went as far as to demonstrate
at police stations and assault them. But this is a very limited
and falsifed presentation of the revolt. The political system
and the media want to conceal the wider social, multinational,
and class character of the revolt. It was not only the students
who were in the streets! And, in any case, most of the youth
who came into the streets did not come down as students, but
as insurgents against the world of domination, state violence,
authority, and exploitation. The media and politicians want to
hide what was evident to everyone who was in the streets: that
in those streets there were the poor, the salaried workers, the
unemployed, those we call excluded. And a large number of
them were immigrants, those who are the cheapest labor force
and main victims of labor exploitation, police violence, and
state repression.
We are an Image from the Future
Consequently, the subject that each analyst presents as
playing a central role in the revolt indicates his or her own po
litical purposes and refects their subjective perception of the
revolt, as well as their future objectives. For example, when
they talk about Greek youth, especially about high school
students, it is in order to separate the "good" rebels, consider
ing them easier to manipulate, from the "bad," uncontrollable
rebels. However the majority of the people who were in the
streets basically belonged to the latter category, they were un
controllable, oppressed people.
Today we are facing two things. One is the repressive
moves by the State through the judicial system and the
police-such as arrests, imprisonment, people being held
hostage through prosecutions, increased public surveillance,
the penalization of wearing masks and of insulting the police
verbally, the targeting of squats, of self-managed spaces, and
generally of the self-organized structures of the movement.
On the other hand we have the ideological attack launched
by the State in order to divide the rebels of December into
"good" students, aiming to incorporate them into the system,
and the "bad ones," who cannot or do not want to be incorpo
rated and thus must be isolated and attacked and repressed.
We should also point out that while repression is expressed
directly by the state mechanisms, the ideological war is being
expressed by them and by other auxiliary mechanisms, such
as the parties of the institutional Left. While the judiciary and
the police repression are immediately visible and understood
as something that comes from outside, the ideological war is
more insidious and is generated within the movement itself,
since it is expressed not only by those who are hostile to the
movement but also by people who appear as friends of the
movement and who are selectively projecting those char
acteristics of the revolt which they like, which means those
characteristics they think they can absorb and utilize. And at
the same time they slander those characteristics and subjects
of the revolt that they don't consider agreeable, naming them
non-political, anti-social, or even criminal.
This ideological war aims to incorporate, to terrorize
those who are not incorporated, and to isolate those who sup
port the revolt.
The crisis of the system, which is a crisis of its social le
gitimation, radically limits the possibilities of incorporation
for a large portion of the people who react and resist. To clarify,
this means that more and more people lose their trust in the
institutions or the proponents of the system. This is why, even
if they manage to incorporate some, they can't really confne
and intercept the infuence of the radical ideas.
The ones that we have to be wary of, because of their ero
sive and undermining presence, are exactly the ones who have
one foot in the old world and the other foot with us, talking
about a new world. These double-faced enemies of the revolt
are the worst, worse than police and judges.
We have to make clear that we're referring specifcally to
those who play a certain role, not even always an important
one, inside the institutions, and not generally to people
workers, neighbors, youth-with whom we meet. As for the
latter, people who are being acculturated and educated by the
system to have faith in the institutions, it was much easier to
communicate with them in the frst days of the revolt, be
cause the material conditions and the tension of the events
was such that everyone was moving from their old positions
to new ones.
Today, as time goes by, our political and personal ability
to keep these contacts is being tested. And so is our patience
when acting together with people diferent from us, recogniz
ing that we have a lot more to learn about how to keep contact
with all these people whom we met in the streets in Decem
ber. And the most important way that we meet face-to-face,
beyond the usual propaganda material, the texts and fyers, is
in the self-organized assemblies. From our side, we encourage
the creation of such assemblies, we participate and intervene
in them. And it is there also that we're faced with the ideologi
cal war I talked about before. But apart from that, there are
the prejudices; both the prejudice of other people regarding
us, and our prejudice towards people who do not have a clear
rejection of the existing system, either out of naivete, out of
fear or just because they are accustomed to it.
But we are on the right path. The relations that have been
developed between anarchists, antiauthoritarians, and other
parts of society constitute a whirlwind and the outcome is un
predictable. For sure it is something positive, as we don't allow
Breaking new ground
normality and alienation to re-establish themselves. Because
in contradiction to the swirl of the revolt where everything is
possible and we can hope for the best, normality is a situation
where almost everything is predictable and most of the time
the result is negative.
Things are unpredictable, not only concerning the rela
tion between anarchists and antiauthoritarians with other
people, but within the movement as well. And, mostly, things
are unpredictable in terms of the relation between the anar
chists, society, and the State. The anarchist/antiauthoritarian
social movement produces many initiatives and acts of resis
tance against the State, some more dynamic and others less
so, some more social and others less so. That is to say that
there is not any central organ or single nucleus, but a variety
of larger and smaller initiatives of struggle from below, some
of which are coordinated while others are not. In every case,
what should be avoided, in my opinion, is to be socially iso
lated, to be isolated among us, in the movement, and to be left
alone to carry out a confrontation with the State.
We understand that a number of things that are done in
Greece, were they done in the US or in Italy, for example,
some of us would be dead and many more would be in prison
for a lot of years. This balance of power that exists today-the
fact that there is such activity and that we can talk about these
things-has been thirty years in the making. But our lives
and our freedom are always imperilled and targeted by the
state mechanisms. After December the State wants to change
We are an Image from the Future
this balance of power, and it could reverse it. Just as when
Alexis Grigoropoulos was murdered and the desire for revolt
came from within the people, there could be another moment
where, based on a different event, an explosion of state re
pression could occur; and anarchists, as well as other fghters,
could be exposed to tremendous dangers.
The history of the movement in the US, in Europe, and
in the world teaches us both what we can do and what we
can be faced with. Having a deeper knowledge of what we
are and what we want to do, but also of what the State is and
what it wants to do with us-to make us disappear-what we
should make sure of is not to isolate ourselves from society,
but also not to be divided within the movement, so that as a
whole we won't be left alone against the State, nor that every
individual comrade will be left alone against the State. But it
is also important not to restrain our impetus or compromise
our inner desires, to act and make things happen, to use our
courage and even our craziness.
We haven't said anything so far about the role of spon
taneity in the events of December. Spontaneity has always
played a role in the anarchist initiatives and did again in
December. But there was also the spontaneity of the social
groups that participated in the revolt, the spontaneity of the
masses. According to Castoriadis, Spontaneity is the excess of
the "result" over the "causes." There were spontaneous forces
that were expressed in December, forces that were hidden
inside the masses of the people and that were not predictable
before. And these forces still inherent in society, much more
in a society that is on its knees, much more in a society di
vided into classes, suffocating by the violence of the system,
by poverty, despair, fear. For people living in such a society,
two possibilities remain: either the passive acceptance of the
existing reality, which the State wants to present as the only
option; or insurrection, which even when it is not visible as
a possibility or choice doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and
that it won't burst forth.
And there is one more point: in today's conditions of
domination by the State and capitalism in the West, the ex
plosion of revolts is not so rare, including metropolitan riots,
mostly by groups of youth and usually triggered by incidents
of police violence. We have the events in the French suburbs,
or the black revolt in L.A. in '92. And as a different case, we
could also mention the Albanian revolt in '97, even though
it has many distinct characteristics. But what happened here
in December, in comparison with other big insurrectionary
events, was that political and social subjects met and inter
acted. Anarchists met with social subjects ready to revolt.
In this context, revolt becomes much more dangerous for
authority; when it is not just an outburst of social rage by a
specifc oppressed social group, but the fertile meeting of the
dynamics of various social groups who direct together their vio
lence against the source of all the exploitation and oppression.
Revolts happen and cannot be avoided. Authority knows
that, so, it prefers to suppress each one social group alone and
not let revolts take on clear political characteristics, not let
them have a total criticism against the existing order. The
presence and participation of the anarchists in December
gave such wider political characteristics; and to a large extent a
subversive criticism of the system as a whole was developed.
And that was right, and it is right for every comrade or
group of comrades, wherever they are in the world, to attempt
and to realize the meeting with social groups that sufer from
the tyranny of the State and capitalism and have the desire
to fght back, so that the unavoidable revolts become more
widespread and not restricted.
If only we imagine what could happen with the meeting
between political subjects who are consciously intending the
subversion of the existing order, with all those social subjects
who sufocate from the State and capitalism and have rea
sons to revolt. Only imagining this is enough to understand.
And this is what happened to a large degree in Greece in
December.
April 2009
Breaking new ground
You could see the hatred in their eyes
One sunny Friday I donned a suit and went with a fiend, similarly attired, into
Kolonaki, central Athens' most elite neighborhood, whose luxury shops and
expensive cars were the target of substantial popular violence in December and of
a well planned anarchist attack executed in early March. We went into a few shops
looking for interviews. My friend intrduced me as a British reporter and himself as
my ofcial trnslator. I put on my best posh accent to ask about the "disturbances."
The best part of it was that my fiend had been to this shop in December-with a
mask and a sledgehammer. It was all we could do to keep fom cracking up during
the interview.
Kazana Poli: Manager of the posh clothing store
Rococo. in the heart of Kolonaki.
My store was vandalized two times, in December and also at
the beginning of March. They destroyed the windows com
pletely' and also caused some damages inside the store. I t was
very bad. In March the troublemakers met in Exarchia, just
a few blocks from here, to put their masks on and prepare
for their rampage. So lots of people saw them and the police
were called in advance. But the police came really late. I don't
think they did their job well. They just came to write up all
the damages but that's not enough.
Business defnitely went down in December and after
the attack in March. People in Athens were afraid to come
downtown and go shopping. And we here in the shop have
been afraid too. Every time I hear a loud noise I think the
300 I
We are an Image from the Future
troublemakers have returned. I' ll hear a loud noise and my
mind will immediately go back to those moments. And also
all the protests they're still holding are keeping the shop
pers away.
You can't really be sure if the attacks are related to the
episode with the students, in December. Of course there's no
real connection. As a businesswoman I think it's quite strange
that Kolonaki has been hit twice. I fnd that quite suspicious.
Because as a result people are leaving the city center and
going to do their shopping in the big malls in the suburbs.
So this vandalism is benefting major interests like Latsis [a
Greek billionaire] and the other people who own the malls. As
a merchant, that's my perspective.
But you have to understand that of course I support
peaceful protests. If you want to protest something you
should go out into the street and do it peacefully. This is how
you show your support for an issue. You don't go around
breaking things. I was also sad after the killing of that boy
but in my view the troublemakers who damaged the shops
were bad people. You could see the hatred in their eyes. They
were very provocative, the way they would look you right in
the eyes as they were smashing the windows. It was just mean.
This proves they had nothing to do with the students, who
went out into the streets with very just demands. It should
be peaceful.
Giorgos Voutsis-Vogiatzis
"With violence as a structural part, the system organizes
ignornce and forties itsel against its deniers. Violence is
everywhere. It is in the peitharxika, 1 in the penalties and in
the isolation cells. In the city plan and in the war. In the news
and in the commercials. In the murderus police and in the
envirnmental looting. In the video games and in the juvenile
correctional institutions.
"How much, Mister President, does your democracy say that
the life of a robber costs, and how much the life of a cop? How
much does the lie of a pn"soner cost in your modern Greek
democrcy and how much the life of a prison manager? How
much does the lie of a reputable judge cost and how much the
lie of the poor demonized immigrnt? Obviously the value of
a human lie gets a diferent meaning when the deceased is a
defender of the ruling class. But the bullets cost the same."
-Giorgos Voutsis-Vogiatzis .
The trial against Giorgos Voutsis-Voutgiatzis, concerning a
bank robbery in 2006, started Wednesday the 1st of April in
the court of Athens. The charges against him were armed rob
bery and possession of explosives (a hand grenade was found
on him during the arrest).About one hundred people gathered
outside the building in solidarity, though only ffteen of them
were allowed inside by the cops, which caused some small
A system of judicial punishment for misbehavior and disobedi
ence committed within the prisons, used to control prisoners throughout the
duration of their sentence.
disturbances from time to time on the stairs to the entrance.
A jury (which in Greece advises the court's verdict, but is not
decisive) that was composed of only employees of the bank
that was robbed was presented frst, and witnesses heard all
the testimony during the frst day. The defense witnesses were
family members, friends, and comrades. They spoke openly
about the economic crisis, the social conditions and working
conditions, syndicalism of the base. Many also explained how
the State and the banks are stealing from us, in order to jus
tify the robbery.
Giorgos stood by his action, which he called a symbolic
attack against the banking system. He said he hadn't yet
thought about what he would do with the money, that the
money wasn't the point. The judge tried to force him to reveal
who his accomplice was and he refused, saying it was an insult
to his integrity. He criticized the reign of drugs and snitch
culture in the prisons and said it was a lie to claim they played
any rehabilitative role. And he apologized to the bank workers
for manifesting authority over them for thirty-fve seconds,
which he felt bad about even though it was a negation of the
authority that rules every moment of our lives. He ended with
a quote from Kazantzakis, and when he was fnished everyone
in the courtroom applauded.
On Thursday, the 2nd of April, the sentences were deliv
ered. For the robbery, seven years of imprisonment, and one
year for possession of explosives, resulting in a total of eight
years. Considering the fact that Giorgos had already spent
Breaking new ground
eighteen months in pre-trial detention, and worked inside
(one day of work equals two days in prison), a substantial
amount of time was deducted from the fnal sentence. Since
prisoners in the Greek system must only serve out 3/5 of their
sentence, Giorgos only has to spend another six months in
prison. He will be transferred to Korydallos prison in Athens,
and freed in September.
During the frst day of trial, the nerves and emotions over
the prosecution of a comrade were interrupted with joy when
it was discovered that two prisoners on trial in the building
next door managed to escape. Most of the overwhelming
amount of undercover, riot, and prison police were so in
tensely focused on the growing group of anarchists outside
building 13, that two freedom loving birds were able to spread
their wings and fy the coop.
302
We are an Image from the Future
We Are Winning
A.G. Schwarz
Another battle is coming. Energized by the fres of December,
the movement is claiming more and more ground. They won
the fghts in the streets, and they still haven't been defeated.
Every week they're claiming new buildings to turn into social
centers, transforming their new parks into undeniable reali
ties, and pushing the State back. The students in Thessaloniki
are demanding that the university de-privatize the cleaning
staf and give all the precarious workers permanent contracts.
Kuneva's syndicate in Athens is demanding the same for the
trams and the trains.
The university director in Thessaloniki has threatened
to call in the police. The mayor of Athens has denied the
existence of the new park in Exarchia, saying: HI don't see a
park there, I see a par
k
ing lot." But both of these malakas
know that if they touch either occupation, it'll be a war all
over again, and we will probably win. But eventually they'll
have to act, because like smart guerrillas, we refuse to go on
the defensive. We don't mistake these new occupations, these
little victories, as ends in themselves. As precious as each one
is they are only steps on the road to revolution. We will and
we must risk losing them in order to go further because in
the war against the State there is no peace or stalemate, and
to stop and circle the wagons means to be destroyed. In other
words if we do not go further, if we only try to protect what
little we've won, we will certainly lose it. So each new liberated
space is being developed for the long-term even as it is used
as a staging point for the next attack.
We don't disregard these liberated spaces as pawns in a
struggle; on the contrary we treasure them. You step into the
park in Exarchia and you see the handmade playground and
all the new trees and it is obvious that it is a work of love. And
if it weren't, so many hundreds of people of all ages wouldn't
come here to hang out, and they wouldn't defend it tooth and
nail when it's threatened. But we won't settle for this park, or
just for its physical existence, giving control of it over to the
mayor like he wants. We'll use it as a staging ground for meet
ings and protests, another bubble of social asylum in the war
against the police, and maybe we'll decide one day to convert
the bordering streets into pedestrian zones, ripping up all
the asphalt. Soon they'll have to strike back. A government
cannot continue to issue hollow threats without losing all its
legitimacy and inviting more rebellion.
Thursday the 2nd of April was a day of general strike. In
the protest march there was a lot of talk about Kuneva. And
right next to the march route a group of anarchists entered the
offce of the company that employed Kuneva and smashed it
all up, from the computers to the fling cabinets to the hard
wood furniture to the framed art hanging on the walls. These
private contractors rent out hyper-exploited immigrant work
ers, pocketing the greater part of the labor costs budgeted by
the government. But that Thursday was payback. The new
Delta Force sped to the scene of the crime but they were too
late. All the anarchists had disappeared into the crowd, having
caused thousands of euros of damage while hanging a banner
off the offce balcony to the delight of the crowds below. Later
in the day, Kuneva's syndicate occupied the offces of the city
trains, demanding the private company be dismissed so that
all the cleaners could be hired on a permanent contract. Out
side, a crowd of anarchists, Alpha Kappa, and some leftists
gathered in support, ensuring that the police could not come
to save the bosses.
Before long, a cheer went up and the crowd began to clap
and talk excitedly. The train company had caved in to the
demands, essentially reversing the supposedly unstoppable
tide of neoliberal privatizations and austerity measures. The
syndicate promised that if their agreement was not honored,
they would be back. History was being changed. Outside, the
person next to me smiled and proclaimed, "We're winning!"
I remember on the streets of Seattle and Prague, anar
chists spray painted that same sentence on the walls, and later,
watching it in some documentary, all the hardened activists
smirked a little, cynical. But the possibility has returned. In
fact it had never left. It's not going to be over tomorrow, but
we can win. And it depends largely on having the confdence
to change history.
Breaking new ground
I feel ver lucky to be living in these times
Iulia: A participant in the queer and anarchist
movements
The situation was boiling before December, all the scandals,
the apathy of the bourgeoisie, people wanting to create a change
but not knowing how. Then the groups that thought they were
the specialists, like the leftists and the anarchists, they lost their
place in the hierarchy because immigrants and students and
people with no political identity were out in the streets. These
specialists were supposed to be leading the struggle but they
had lost their status. They had to make alliances with other
people who were out on the streets. This opened those groups
up. They had to think about their role. It also had a fragment
ing efect and opened the gender relationships. A bit of light
came in, although I wouldn't say it's wide open. It helped that
women had the opportunity to fght in the streets.
A queer movement is developing in Greece, slowly, but
we're trying. I was really surprised, during Carnival there was
a queer party at Villa Amalias, which is normally very closed,
a ghetto, exclusively punk.
I don't want to criticize, I'm just making observations,
because things are getting much better, things are happening.
But I can see why and how people can be included or how
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We are an Image from the Future
they can be excluded. There are a lot of girls who participate
in the violence and that's very positive; and there are a lot of
girls in the assemblies. I think there is an equilibrium. But
women lack visibility. I would say the biggest problem is that
the smaller issues are not discussed, like sexuality, even labor,
or gender relations, or art. The good thing with December is
that this started to open up. It seems like we're getting closer.
The thinking hasn't changed much. For example there
is lots of solidarity with Kuneva but we don't talk about why
these women from Bulgaria are in this position. We just de
nounce precarious work and that's that. But still, because of
the attack on Kuneva there are openings. It's just that I' m im
patient and I want things to get done. I don't want to criticize
because things are getting done slowly, but I want to caution
that it needs to go beyond simple solidarity. The anarchists,
we take up a cause and it becomes ours because we show bet
ter solidarity than anyone else. What we need to do is analyze
it, take it to pieces and ask why these women are in such a
precarious position, who are they, and I think that's the way
to make the movement open to more people, by opening up
to their experiences.
The topic of gender relations can work in a fractal way.
From the situation with Kuneva there is the potential for
things to move off in multiple directions and all the different
themes can be discussed instead of being overshadowed by
this solidarity umbrella. That's my vision, that it branches off
in multiple directions. I wish the movement would talk about
the whores. No one talks about them now. In December you
had a free zone in Solomou in Exarchia, it was like a liberated
zone, yet you still had whores from Nigeria working there.
What the fuck? They're still there now and nobody talks
about it. How can you intervene in such a situation? There
must be a way. It's the same with the drug addicts.
The groups focusing on gender relations are minor and
without much visibility. And many anarchists look down on
them, as though the issue is not so important. And typically
they don't make connections between the struggles. But
you can see a change. Connections are starting to be made.
I'm optimistic.
Maybe this thing with the parks is quite a feminine project.
I'm not fond of using these terms,jeminine, masculine, because
this is a trap, a dualism. But this focus on the parks and the
public space has the potential to change the gender relations,
because they are self-organized and come from within the
movement. In those spaces gender relations can take on differ
ent forms because it's not a combat situation with barricades
and no time to try out new things, just-I'll do the frst aid and
you do the stones. It is crucial that it's happening in a public
space, that it's not closed. And I have a very good feeling about
what's going to happen at the new squat on Patision.
Because Greek society is very patriarchal, when we say
that things are going to change, the frst thing you imagine is
that things are going to become more feminine, because that's
what's missing, that's the energy that has been suppressed.
But I have a problem with the terminology because it can
become a trap, masculine and feminine, using the terms they
impose. But then if you don't speak about it I don't think you
can change it.
Anyway, I want things to change but I don't want the at
tacks to stop. I enjoyed the Kolonaki action when I saw it on TV
There's some people making this very awful argument, saying
that after these attacks there are more cops on the streets. And
they blame the actions for the repression. But the repression is
everywhere, in the jobs and the everyday lives. You can't say the
repression starts after you go smash a window, it just becomes
obvious. They don't understand that repression is everywhere
but some people have the courage to play with their own body
and risk themselves to reveal this repression.
You also need the battles. They're not necessary for their
logic, they're necessary for their passion, and that's the frst
thing you have to do, you react to this gloom, and it helps
you start to organize. There's a paradox that I haven't sorted
out. If you favor violence then you personally have to throw
stones. You can't just sit on your couch. When the insurrec
tion was happening I had to be there in the streets. Whether
I' m going to be up front throwing stones, that's up to me and
my courage and my abilities.
The movement still needs to open up more, to leave be
hind this bourgeois normality but after December it is get
ting better. I feel very lucky to be living in these times.
Breaking new ground
The Political Parties After December
On the 8th of April, the newspaper Elefthertipia published
poll results, showing the strength of political parties in 2009,
compared with 2004. PASOK, the Socialists, climbed from
34% to 38%. ND, the conservatives, in power since 2004,
fell from 43. 1 % to 33. 1 %. KKE, the Communists, fell from
9.5% to 8.7 %. SYRIZA, the coordination of the far Left, rose
from 4.2% to 7.5%. LAOS, the fascist party, rose from 4. 1 %
to 7.9%. The Green Party did not exist in 2004, but in 2009
polled at 4.8%.
Between the two major political parties, ND and PASOK,
it was clear that the scandals and the crisis of legitimacy pro-
I 305
voked by December would necessitate a house-cleaning, so
these two parties were essentially changing places. It speaks
volumes that the KKE, the former representative of the re
sistance to the dictatorship, who unequivocally condemned
December's insurrection in its entirety, lost support, while the
"pink" or "Euro" communists of SYRIZA, who played with
the events of December, gained signifcantly. It remains to
be seen whether they will be able to continue to manipulate
the insurrection and recruit its less radical participants. As
for the fascists, it is to be expected that when popular revolt
threatens authority, the elite will encourage populist fascism,
but just because it's predictable doesn't make it any less of a
threat.
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We are an Image from the Future
During the European Parliament elections the media and
political analysts were scrambling around trying to explain
away the extraordinary situation that over 50% of the Greek
citizens had refused to vote, a social phenomenon directly
related to the insurrection of December.
Claim of responsibility for an arson attack
Many older dogmas and ideological schemes have collapsed
or are gradually collapsing in the face of dilemmas such as ca
reer vs. family, entertainment vs. moral temperance, and more
extreme and vulgar individualism against the promotion of
"the social good." Advanced capitalism penetrates everything.
It sells opportunities for social and economic advancement in
the form of investment shares. (And whoever fails bears per
sonal responsibility for their poor investment. ) It sells mass
entertainment, sells the idea that in reality you should only
care for yourself: to focus on doing your job well to get a pro
motion, to acquire a new car, new apartment, new furnishings,
new routine. In your free time you seek entertainment spend
ing hours of your life in shopping malls, cafes, clubs, cinemas,
theaters, whether in the high culture or some alternative. We
are encouraged to seek self-improvement, because you are
never good enough according to advertising in hair parlors,
beauty salons, gyms, diet centers ...
The organization of this lifestyle requires the assurance
that nothing will penetrate your personal space, that nothing
will disturb your bliss, that there will be no obstacles in your
way. Yet in this society coexist the disinherited and excluded,
who don't have access to this lifestyle, not out of choice, but so
cial conditions. Expecting not so much the possibility of mere
survival, but the wish of living "like everyone else" produces
violence, theft, burglary, robberies, kidnappings, often with
bloody endings. Other groups of marginalized youth ignore
the orders of the legal system and vandalize their environment
without a specifc reason, just because they want to defuse a
rage that they cannot defne, but express everywhere.
Schools occupations, the battles in the stadiums, neigh
borhood gang clashes to control the drug traffc, all of these
are dangerous to the status quo. This is where the role of
security comes in: "justice" that sends to hell whomever is
cast out by the system, the police that ofer order, the various
police units and their frequent patrols and presence in the
metropolis and throughout the country. But as the police may
not be ubiquitous, their measures escalate. More cameras ap
pear on the streets, and methods of surveillance become more
evolved. As the outcasts become more evolved, so too the sys
tems of security. Scientists work feverishly in universities and
other institutions to develop smart solutions using the cutting
edge of technology with public or private grants. Individual
vendors specialize and can now offer alarms, access control
systems, security shutters, electronic locks, motion sensors, all
types of cameras, microphones, bugs, etc.
A whole industry has developed, with demand from the
general public, because those who do not take special measures
have a lot to lose. So many petit bourgeoisie establish small
companies of this type and try to earn a few crumbs from the
enterprise. A common culture of snitching is also develop
ing, and for every dark spot not watched by a camera there is
Breaking new ground
a vigilant eye watching from behind the shutters. For every
delay in the police intervention, there is an indignant citizen
who is eager to be a vigilante. But in this same society there
are those who refuse, who def these structures, institutions,
and ethical and cultural values, promises, and hopes. Rest
less agitators who organize and attack the existing in order to
eliminate it. Some who arm their desires for action. Some who
will never rest until they see the ruins of this world.
There can be no oasis of freedom in this space and time.
Everybody owes it to themselves, if they have any dignity, to
fght, to test the limits of endurance, and take part in the revo
lutionary struggle for a world without authoritarian institu
tions and property, that will not exclude anyone, and therefore
will not need the machinery of control and surveillance, and
will not be run by the vampires in suits and uniforms, but will
be organized by the collective synthesis of our free individual
desires in ways that only the experience of the struggle can
achieve.
That's why we decided to hit three shops that sell surveil
lance systems and services, one on Tuesday at dawn in Gizi
and two simultaneously on Wednesday morning in Kalithea.
Not only has it proven that the great number of cameras in
front of these shops cannot protect them but we also humili
ated the frequent police patrols that go around like sheriffs
in groups of twenty in the city center. Our goal is to spread
chaos and insecurity on the enemy's territory, which is where
every large or small property mediates human relations,
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We are an Image from the Future
constructing exclusions in every little corner of this rotten
world. There is no security system or police patrol that will
reverse our intentions, nor those of all the other comrades
who are fghting for revolution. Let all the shopping malls
fll up with cops, let the security guards get all the work they
can, let the shops sell us more security systems, and let the
bourgeoisie look under their beds before they go to sleep and
they will still awake in the night terrifed.
PS. We salute all the comrades who alone or in organized
groups are trying to transmit the virus of the revolutionary
violence. We respond to the invitation for a new urban guer
rilla whose dimensions are already exploding even across the
smallest cities in the countryside.
-Conspiracy for the Promotion of Insecurity
April 15, 2009
The prisoners of December
N. & Mi: Anarchists from Exarchia who
participate in, among other things, the movement
of solidarity with the prisoners
Apostolis Kiriakopoulos, one of the prisoners of December,
is currently in Korydallos. He was arrested in the frst days of
the insurrection, outside the Polytechnic, and he is in prison
awaiting trial. They fled a motion to release him but it was
rejected. He is accused of being a very dangerous person who
could commit the same actions if released. The judge made
clear in his statement that these kind of people have to be
eliminated.
Talking about the prisoners of December, we have to
mention that there are an unknown number of immigrants
"vho were arrested, and the police never provided any names
or lists of them. They say that there were about 300 people ar
rested in December, and of these seventy were kept in pre-trial
detention. Among these are immigrants about whom there is
no information, and we only have contact with a few of them.
The basic accusations are for rioting and looting. Gradually
these cases are going to trial, and some of the detainees have
been released. To sort through the chaos the movement cre-
ated a single blog that includes all the info we have been able
to gather, and this helps coordinate the solidarity.
One important group of prisoners were the nineteen
high school students arrested for rioting in Larissa. The lo
cal judge charged them under the anti- terrorist law. Four of
them, as of April, have been locked up for months and were
only released recently. Because of the fact that they applied
the anti -terrorist law there was massive participation in the
solidarity movement in Larissa, especially on the part of other
high school students.
Elias Nikolaou was arrested on the 13th of January, 2009,
near the scene of an arson attack on a municipal police car. He
is currently in the Amfssa prison. Elias is one of the prison
ers who was indicted for arson last year and he had been on
the run. In November of 2007, the police arrested Vaggelis
Botzazis in Thessaloniki. They convicted him for many dif
ferent arson attacks, on the French car company Renault (in
solidarity with the anti-terror arrests in France), a bank, one
attack against the building of the electricity company,but they
didn't have any proof connecting him to these other actions.
Nonetheless the police announced that they had arrested a
highly active gang. They said Vaggelis was operating together
with three other people, one of whom was Elias.
When the police started to search for the three comrades
they went underground. After one year, Vaggelis was released
from prison for lack of evidence, and in the meantime he had
been active on the inside. One month later the three comrades
Breaking new ground
appeared at a police station and presented themselves. They
said there was no proof at all connecting them to these inci
dents, so there was a meeting with the authorities and they
decided not to give them pre-trial detention and just let them
await trial on conditional liberty
I n November they let Nikolaou go free and in January
they arrested him for burning the cop car. He doesn't speak
about this action because he doesn't admit to doing it. In his
letters he has explained that he is imprisoned for being an
anarchist and this makes him a target for the police. And he
will stay in prison at least one year until his trial.
We have to mention that throughout December many
incidents also took place inside the prisons in reaction to the
murder of Alexis. However, major revolts did not take place,
because the prisoners were physically exhausted from their
hunger strike and the struggle that lasted all through No
vember. Still, to express their solidarity with the insurrection
many prisoners refused to eat during those days.
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We are an Image from the Future
letter from Anarchist A. Kiriakopoulos
from Korydallos prison
Five months after the explosive events of December and the
mass arrests and prosecutions that took place, six of us remain
captive in the claws of the State.
Recently, the so- called "j ustice state" and its servants
decided to extend my pre-trial detention, stating that what
should come frst is the extermination of my person and of
my "criminal" activity, for the protection of society. According
to their characterization, I am a reckless and fanatical person.
To sum it up they characterized me as an enemy of society.
But the enemies of society are all those who after the cold
blooded murder of comrade Alexis Grigoropoulos tried to
repress the social phenomenon of the violent insurrection in
December with the reckless and mass use of tear gas-to the
extent that it constituted torture-the beating of protesters,
and their swift imprisonment.
I t is known for years now that the cops, especially when
dealing with anarchist demos, unleash chemical warfare with
the slightest pretext so they can torture people. Despite the
vicious repression of December's insurrectionary violence,
it continues to persist and is proof that the fre that was lit
cannot be extinguished. After all, Alexis's murder was the
cause and at the same time the pretext for the outbreak of
social rage.
As always, the mass media assumed their role, as the low
life journalists' propaganda reached vile limits. After the state
murder of Alexis, they reported widespread destruction in the
whole of Greece and claimed the police made no arrests. The
the fact that all of us imprisoned for the insurrection face the
same charges is no coincidence. The line from the State was
exactly the same for nearly all of us.
Inside prison, time is the worst enemy. Especially when
you are in custody awaiting trial. There is a continuous un
certainty as you never know exactly when you are going
to be released. This is a situation that defnitely wears you
down psychologically. This is also an efect of being locked up
against your will with four people for fourteen hours a day
in a nine- square-meter cell designed to ft only one person.
It is especially felt when relationships of camaraderie or even
of understanding are as rare as they are on the other side of
the prison bars. Though of course there are always those who
choose to stand in dignity and struggle.
Incarceration is an everyday psychological warfare en
forced upon you by the system when you are in prison. On
top of this you also have the screws usually treating prisoners
who take part in struggles (hunger strikes, refusal of prison
food, demanding their printed material free of censorship) in
a derogatory and sly way. One typical example is the last time
prisoners were refusing food as a protest for the murder of
Alexis, the warden of the wing came in together with other
screws and threatened the prisoners taking part in the protest
with disciplinary prison transfers.
Generally when you are not subjugated to their cor
rectional system they try to create a climate of fear. Anyway,
prison is like a large melting pot of souls. If you are a coward
it will mince you up and make you even more of a coward but
if you are tough it will make you even tougher and colder as a
person. The cell makes the prisoner sufocate. Outside in the
prison yard there is the illusion of freedom ...
Still through all of this nothing has ended, the struggle
continues.
Those who are right are the rebels not the snitches and those
who bow down
-(A popular Greek anarchist chant)
Breaking new ground
What the Cops Told Us
Brief refection on a conversation between an
anarchist and a progressive student witb many
anarchist friends, one night in the occupied par .
We had been talking about the revolt, the tactics of the State,
how to win the revolution, what were the weaknesses in the
anarchist space, what was going well. Like any other night
in Exarchia. At nights the whole neighborhood was one gi-
ant multicentric meeting, a hive of the buzzing bees of the
I revolution, talking, arguing, theorizing, planning, laughing,
311
socializing, making the networks stronger. At one point I
mentioned the Kolonaki attacks, to name a method of keeping
the struggle fresh in people's minds, to show that the anar-
chists were capable of acting outside of Exarchia too, even in
the richest neighborhoods.
And she says: "But the Kolonaki attacks were done by
police."
"What? What are you talking about? I mean the time
in March when thirty koukoulofori smashed all the luxury
shops."
"Yes, that was police."
"No, it wasn't."
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We are an Image from the Future
"I t was. Some cops admitted this to my friend. They said,
yeah, we did that."
"I assure you, it was not the police."
"How do you know? "
"I know."
"How? "
" ... We know the people who did it."
"But I don't believe it, why would the police say they
were the ones behind it? "
"To create divisions and discredit the people taking more
aggressive actions, obviously."
"But this friend isn't political at all, it makes no sense for
them to tell lies to some uninvolved student."
"But look how quickly that rumor comes to the anarchist
space, and the people at its periphery."
It's the same game as always. Everyone should choose
their own level of involvement but everyone needs to support
the attacks. They can make criticisms-internal criticisms
but the support has to be there. If we're afraid to show that
these attacks give us joy, to claim them, not as our own acts
but as a part of our struggle, people will sense the marginality
of these actions, and the uncertain ones will latch on to any
rumor that the attacks were really a provocation by the State
meant to discredit the struggle, and they themselves become
the unknowing discrediters. Everyone loves a conspiracy that
leaves them as victims in a moral play and not protagonists
who have to take bold actions in murky situations. How sad,
to think of all the brave combatants written down in history as
police provocateurs thanks to the people doing the actual po
lice work of discrediting the foremost attacks of the struggle,
which sometimes have poor aim, but always are necessary.
Speci al i zed Guerri l l a, Di fuse Guerri l l a
I n the last days of December, a new aspect of the continuing
insurrection began to appear more frequently: urban guer
rilla groups expanding their presence and activity. Some of
these groups existed long before December and came from
the extreme Left, following the tradition of 1 7 November
and ELA. But after December, new groups appeared and
began carrying out bold attacks, and the communiques they
inevitably released were often laden with an antiauthoritarian
analysis. Clandestine anarchist groups carrying out nighttime
fre bombings against police vehicles or government buildings
had been active for years, but the new manifestations of this
tactic after December were calling for urban guerrilla warfare
as a decisive strategic course.
This development was the subj ect of strong, and anony
mous, debate. There are multiple conficting opinions. Some
people feel that escalating to guerrilla attacks is going too far
too fast, that most people will not be able to make that tacti
cal leap or even understand it, and the anarchists will be iso
lated and vulnerable to heavy repression that the authorities
will j ustify on the basis of those guerrilla activities. The sug
gestion was even published that the shooting attacks against
the police were acts of provocation orchestrated by the State
itself. This sounds too much like the habitual response that
fearfully denounces any attack considered too extreme as
the work of a government conspiracy: the assumption is that
Breaking new ground
people within the struggle are always victims, always defen
sive, they never take the initiative to attack and they never
make a mistake and go too far. Although the theory itself
seems invalid, it does refect that many people considered
the guerrilla attacks to be illegitimate or dangerous for the
struggle as a whole.
A more nuanced critique is that Greek society has his
torical references for specialized Left guerrilla groups, such
as 1 7 November, which enj oyed a good deal of success and
popular support, but there is little tradition in Greece of the
anarchist model of diffuse guerrilla groups-non-vanguardist
groups that intend to encourage a diffusion or spreading of
their tactics and that exist as amorphous or fexible entities
rather than professional guerrilla organizations. Lacking this
set of historical references and traditions, the argument goes,
the new strategy will not be successful at getting a broader
portion of the population to engage in guerrilla actions.
Some years back, 17 November itself made a criticism of an
antiauthoritarian group attempting to utilize guerrilla tactics
against a broader array of targets. 1 7 November had a popu
list analysis and they tended to attack targets that the vast
maj ority of the population hated, such as CIA agents or the
US Embassy. It is also worth noting that their greater special
ization allowed them to touch targets that would be too dif
fcult for less professional groups to even approach. In their
critique, they said that choosing more commonplace targets,
which the antiauthoritarians did to accompany their deeper
We are an Image from the Future
analysis, would generate fear rather than appreciation in the
society because people would not know why the target was
attacked. In this way, the difuse guerrillas are more demand
ing of the people, both because they require a deeper critique
of capitalism and the State in order to be understood, and
because their strategy requires that more and more people
make similar attacks.
A third critique aims at clandestinity itself. The argu
ment is that a strategy of clandestine guerrilla warfare is
inherently specializing and spectacular. In other words,
it takes such a high degree of specialization and expertise
that the vast majority of a society cannot and will not par
ticipate, contrary to an insurrection in which everyone can
participate in their own way, as long as they can go out on
the streets. Given the numerical inferiority of the partici
pants, hence the scarcity of the actions, combined with their
higher level of preparation and impact, the guerilla actions
are by nature spectacular. Their primary audience, whether
intended or not, is virtual reality. The major way an urban
riot communicates itself, at least within the city in which it
takes place, is to he seen directly. Clandestine attacks, how
ever, are witnessed primarily through the lens of the media,
as people rarely happen to be around to see them occur.
Hence, people become spectators of the struggle rather than
its protagonists, as when they are in the streets, participating
in public illegal actions.
As the leading edge of the struggle gets further away
from people's lived realities, they are transformed even more
permanently into spectators; meanwhile the State and the
media themselves spectacularize the attacks and make the at
tacks the symbol for the entire struggle. Popular participation
in the decreasingly signifcant public struggle decreases, and
eventually the State can simply turn off the struggle by direct
ing the media to stop publicizing attacks, thus erasing what
had become in the popular consciousness the leading edge
and primary manifestation of the struggle. Thus decapitated,
what remains of the struggle can be bullied and bribed into
collaboration with the institutional Left. According to propo
nents of this critique, that is what happened in Germany and
Italy in the ' 70s and ' 80s.
The guerrilla strategy also fnds many proponents. Some
say that attacks should not be denounced, and denouncing
attacks carried out by other comrades in the struggle is do
ing the divisive work of the State. Furthermore, the guerrilla
attacks are just another manifestation of the rage of the peo
ple, and a larger portion of society can participate in them
if they are legitimized and supported by all the comrades.
After all, for an insurrection to grow to a revolution it will
have to win an armed confict with the State and it cannot
do this if it is unarmed.
Others counter the argument that a guerrilla strategy
spectacularizes the struggle or leads to an unintentional van
guard, pointing out that before December, the anarchists were
the only ones frebombing the police and attacking banks, and
one could have accused them of being vanguardists, except
that their tactics were generalized, adopted by society and
taken out of their control, which is exactly what they wanted.
Currently, guerrilla attacks are the most extreme and violent
manifestation of the struggle but in a certain moment they
could become generalized. During the civil war in Greece, a
huge portion of the population supported and participated
in the clandestine struggle, and revolution at one point or
another entails civil war.
Some anarchists who favor the guerrilla strategy believe
that non-vanguardist guerrilla groups need nonetheless to
have a strong structure and a certain professionalism in order
to prevent immature or unprepared people from taking up
the guns or doing something reckless that could not be j usti
fed. The idea is that if one escalates to tactics that could easily
cause the loss of life, they also need to escalate their level of
organization and preparedness to be sure that no one is killed
needlessly or accidentally. There is also the fact that careless
ness leads to people getting caught needlessly, which gives the
State the appearance of more power and effciency than it
actually possesses, and discourages others from participating
in these attacks.
Below is one of the few criticisms of the guerrilla strategy
to be openly published within the Greek antiauthoritarian
movement, authored by the autonomist group TPTG. Else-
Breaking new ground
where in the book, we have published communiques released
by guerrilla groups after specifc attacks.
EXTRACT FROM
"
THE REBELLIOUS PASSAGE OF A PROLETARIAN MI NORITY
THROUGH A BRI EF PERI OD OF TI ME
"
BY TPTG
The spectacular separtion of ared "struggle."
The need to mediate proletarian anger politically, even if
it is to mediate it with an armed mediation, was not something
that stemmed from the struggle itself but it was something
that was being imposed on the struggle from the outside and
afterwards. In the beginning, there were two attacks by the
so- called "armed vanguard," one on the 23rd of December
after the peak of the rebellion and one on the 5th of Janu
ary, when the resurgence of the rebellion was at stake. From
a proletarian point of view, even if these attacks were not or
ganized by the state itself, the fact that after a month all of us
became spectators of those "exemplary acts," that had not at
all been part of our collective practice, was a defeat in itself.
The "armed vanguard" avoids admitting not only that they
were not the frst ones to target the police but also that no
"armed vanguard," anywhere, has forced the police from the
streets, or frightened individual cops from carrying their off
cial identities with them for a few days. They can't admit that
they were surpassed by the movement. Claiming that there is
"a need to upgrade" violence, the so-called" armed vanguard"
essentially tries to downgrade the socially and geographically
diffused proletarian violence and violation of the law; the
We are an I mage from the Future
latter are the true opponents of the "armed vanguard" within
the movement and as long as such practices go on no inter
ventionism of "upgrading" things can fnd a fertile soil. It is
on that basis that the armed struggle allies with the State:
both are challenged by the proletarian subversive activity, the
continuation of which constitutes a threat to the existence of
both of them.
The proletarian subversive activity in the rebellion gained
a temporary but not so superfcial victory: an insubordination
that weakened the security-surveillance state for a month and
proved that we can change the power relations. This became
possible since the rebels targeted the social relations in which
they are forced to live, something that no "armed vanguard"
has ever managed to do.
Considering the range and the intensity of all the De
cember events, the state repressive apparatus proved practi
cally weak. Since they had to deal with a delegitimization of
the institutions of control and not j ust bullets and grenades,
the infamous zero tolerance became a simple tolerance to
wards the rebels' activities. The state counter- attack could
actually become successful in January only by making use of
the "armed vanguard" operations: frst, on an ideological level,
by equating the state murder with the wounding of a riot
police cop, thus relegitimizing the police and the security
surveillance state in general. Secondly, on an operational level
intensifying its repression. They even exploited the place of
the attack (Exarchia), presenting the rebellion as a spectacular
vendetta between cops and "anarchists, " as a grotesque and
banal performance staged in a political ghetto.
As the rebellion was dying away, there was a notable
proliferation of attacks against banks and state buildings by
several groups, which cannot be placed in the same category
with the " armed vanguard" " deeds," since most of them do
not claim to be ahead of the actual movement (although they
do not necessarily lack a voluntaristic, arrogant posture).
However, the return of the "armed vanguard" proper
with the execution of an anti- terrorist-squad cop in early
June, when even the memory of the rebellion had weakened,
has given militarism and the escalation of pure violence a
pretext to present themselves as an attractive alternative to a
(small?) part of those who participated in the rebellion, if we
are to judge by the political tolerance of the antiauthoritar
ian milieu towards this action. The limited class composition
of the rebellion, its restricted extension beyond the level of
the delegitimization of the security-surveillance state and
the gradual weakening of several communal proj ects in the
center and the neighborhoods-mostly in Athens-led to the
fourishing of a separated kind of blind violence as a danger
ous caricature of "struggle," or rather a substitute. As certain
important subj ects of the rebellion were gradually leaving the
stage (the high school students, the university students, the
immigrants), its social content got weaker and weaker and po
litical identities became again strengthened as was the norm
before. The "armed vanguard" violence is just one of these
political identities, even in its naive and nihilistic form, ap
pearing in an era of a generalized crisis of reproduction where
the State and capital are unable to ofer any social democratic
type of "remedies" to heal the wounds of the rebellion. It's
not important for us now to doubt about the real identity of
these hit men with the ridiculous but revealing name "Revo
lutionary Sect"; what causes us some concern is the political
tolerance of some quarters toward them, given the fact that
it's the frst time that in a Greek "armed vanguard's" text
there's not one grain of even the good old Leninist "for the
people" ideology but instead an antisocial, nihilistic bloodlust.
The crisis of neoliberalism, as a certain phase of capitalist ac
cumulation and legitimization, seems to lead to a deeper crisis
(even to serious signs of social decomposition) and not to any
signs of revival of reformism. Even the recent electoral failure
of the governing party combined with the high percentage
of election abstention (the highest ever in an excessively po
liticized country like Greece), which was an indirect result
of the legitimization crisis that the rebellion expressed and
deepened, have not led to any concessions on the part of the
State. With all its own limits, the rebellion made the limits
of capitalist integration even more visible than before. The
slogan "communism or capitalist civilization" seems more
timely than ever.
Breaking new ground
A Hot Summer . . .
On July 25, at fve in the morning, unknown persons placed
a frebomb at the gate of the squatted social center, Fabrika
Yfanet. People standing guard at the squat quickly put out
the fre. In a suspiciously short amount of time, multiple
police vehicles arrived at the scene and began provoking the
squatters. Later two riot police squads parked nearby.
Four days earlier, several assailants with molotov cock-
tails attacked the station of Radio Revolt, a pirate radio sta-
tion broadcasting from an occupied space in Thessaloniki's
Aristotelious University. The attack was also thwarted thanks
r-
to the resistance of people guarding the station, and damages 317
were minimal.
In Athens, the summer was stained with the appearance
of fascists, walking openly in the streets in areas where they
had never been seen before, forming groups to patrol their
neighborhoods. Police conducted massive raids to clear the
undocumented immigrants out of Omonia, sweeping them
off the streets where they had once thronged in the thou
sands, and the fascists held a march in the same neighbor
hood, protected by police from the anarchists trying to attack
them. In Patras the police destroy a maj or refugee camp, full
of people waiting as they try to get on a boat for other parts of
Europe and the greater chances of survival they ofer. As the
police raids mounted, immigrants in Athens protested and
We are an Image from the Future
rioted for several days, and the anarchists organized a protest
in solidarity with them, attracting more than 4,000 people.
In the neighborhood of Aghios Panteleimonos, the fascists
took over a park with a playground where immigrants and
their children had been hanging out, and they forced the local
police station to lock the park. In their attempt to segregate
the park, they viciously beat up a father in front of his child
for violating the boycott.
In August, in the midst of all these clashes and contradic
tions, the struggle takes a recess. The heat drives everyone out
to the islands, and the cities close down for the month. The
squatted social centers put up posters inviting nazis and police
to get acquainted with their security teams, which are staying
throughout the summer to defend these spaces. The fascists
decline to take them up on the ofer. But the temperature goes
up even more as forest fres are set j ust north of Athens to ille
gally clear land for real estate development. Even in the midst
of a political crisis of legitimacy and popular rebellion, the
capitalists are so greedy that they cannot refrain from rocking
the boat for just a few months.
At the end of the month the Greek anarchists and antiau
thoritarians continue a recent tradition of making a summer
camp at Acheloos, a river in eastern Greece that is being di
verted for hydroelectric dams and commercial cotton irriga
tion in a construction megaproj ect that is destroying one of
the Greek mainland's most important wilderness areas.
On August 25, in Belgrade, Serbia, two molotov cocktails
are thrown at the Greek Embassy in solidarity with the Greek
prisoner Thodoros Iliopoulos, on hunger strike at the time.
On September 4th, fve anarchists, Tadej Kurep, I van Vulovic,
Sanja Dojkic, Ratibor Trivunac, and Nikola Mitrovic, are ar
rested and threatened with international terrorism charges. A
sixth person goes on the run.
Early on the 4th of September, police spark a small riot in
Exarchia when they pursue two people spraying graffti into
the anarchist stronghold. Residents run to stop police from
making the arrests, and the cops pull their guns on the crowd,
which reacts aggressively. Delta Force arrives on motorbike in
several groups, cutting off streets and arresting fve people,
kicking them savagely with their j ackboots. Subsequently, riot
police provocatively attack the liberated park on Navarinou,
just above the spot where Alexis was murdered. The arrested
are charged with throwing molotovs, even though none had
been thrown that night. One of the arrested is seriously in
j ured, suffering a ruptured lung. Three cops are also injured,
and two cop cars damaged. The next night, a riot police posi
tion nearby is attacked with real molotovs, and residents set
up burning barricades to hinder the entrance of police rein
forcements. Charges against the fve arrested in the park are
later dropped.
On September 5, during the International Expo in Thes
saloniki, PEKOp the cleaners' union to which Konstantina
Kuneva belongs, leads a protest of thousands of workers.
PEKOP declares:
In the dark days that they are preparing for us, let's get ready
let's organize and let's hit back without delay with a warm
autumn and a hot winter. We do not forget December! We
do not forget the bullets that killed Alexis, nor the acid that
burned K. Kuneva, PEKOP's general secretary! We live social
war everyday here. And Konstantina is the fag of our social
struggle [ . . . ]
We shall not be the tail of the bureaucrats who constantly
team up with the bosses and the State, allotting like "parties
of power" the privileges of class collaboration, having the
audacity to speak in our name, in the name of the working class,
stabbing our struggles in the back. Nor will we give ground
to those who constantly want to control us, to transform our
struggles to votes, and when December comes they cross to
the other side of the river . . . The workers must march and
struggle against the bosses without false mediators and good
willers of this or that bureaucracy. The emancipation of the
working class is the work of the working class itself!
Along the march protesters destroy several CCT sur
veillance cameras and launch fares at the police. Police re
spond with tear gas, and after the march attempt to arrest a
dozen members of Alpha Kappa, meanwhile gassing an Alpha
Kappa social center. A large crowd of protesters comes and
unarrests the AK members.
Breaking new ground
Conversati on with the Owner of a Smal l
Hotel , on the Trai n from Athens to Patras
"So what do you think about what happened in
December?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know, all the protests, the riots. Do you think it will
happen again?"
"You know what, here in Greece we have the conserva
tives, the Socialists, the Communists, and all they want is
power. So if the conservatives are in power, the others will do
things to create disruptions so they can call an election and
try to take over the government. The conservatives were in
power, it looked like the Socialists would be in the next gov
ernment, so the Communists wanted to make some problems
in the streets."
"But it wasn't the Communists in the streets, not the
Communist Party. They were trying to stop the occupations
and the riots."
"It's always like this in Greece. One political party is in
power and the other ones want to be in power, so they create
problems. You'll see, in another few years they'll create some
other scandal or outrage so they can call elections and change
who is in power. That's all they care about."
"Maybe that's why some people want to get rid of all the
politicians and all the political parties."
We are an I mage from the Future
"Yes, but their purpose is to organize the country, some
one has to do that."
"People can do that themselves."
"You think so? But what about defending the country?
Who will do that? We have Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, all
of them think part of Greece is theirs. And then there is Tur
key, j ust waiting to invade us the minute we are weak. What do
we do about that? Get rid of the politicians, and then you'll be
without a house, my friend."
"I mean all the politicians, all the governments, in Turkey
too."
"You think they'll get rid of the government in Turkey?"
"I know people there who are trying to. And besides, the
other Turkish people believe the same lie told by their politi
cians, that they need the government to protect them against
Greece, or the Kurds."
"Ha! Greece is j ust nine million. How many is Turkey?
They're a lion afraid of a cat."
"There's nothing unusual in that. Israel is afraid of Pal
estine. America is afraid of Al Qaida. The world is full of lions
afraid of cats. It's a very useful lie:'
"Ha, this is true. The world is full of lions afraid of cats.
The Palestinians are very dangerous, with their rocks, and
Osama, hiding in a cave somewhere, is very dangerous to a
country with nuclear weapons. Ha! Anyways, the politicians
won't be able to make people happy. How can they solve
the economic problems? They can't! It's a problem of the
economy. Greece doesn't produce anything. We don't make
any cars. We just have tourism. How can politicians make the
crisis go away, or create jobs? They can't. The only thing they
can do is crack down on the immigrants who are taking the
jobs of Greek people."
"The immigrants aren't taking anyone's j obs. The bosses
are choosing to give those j obs to people they can exploit
more, and relying on the politicians to blame the immigrants
instead of the bosses."
"True, this is true. But anyways that's all they can do, get
rid of the immigrants. What else can the politicians do? Noth
ing. A politician can't create jobs if the capital is not there.
But how can they bring capital? They already let the big com
panies get away without paying taxes. Me, I own one small
hotel and I have to pay all the taxes, but if I owned twenty
hotels I wouldn't have to pay anything. The real problem is
that Greece doesn't produce anything. If we made cars I bet
we'd be happier."
"They produce cars in my country and the people aren't
happy."
"No? Hmm. Well, we do make the best oil. Olive oil I
mean. I make my own oil, I never buy any I have my own
trees. The very best oil comes from Peleponesus, next best
from upstairs, the north I mean. But we don't produce our
own brand. Italy buys our oil, mixes it with lower quality
stuf to make it more, and sells it with an Italian stamp. It's
terrible!"
"That's too bad."
"Ah, look out the window there, you see those trees, all
black? There were big fres here. The government says it's
from people dropping their cigarettes. I tell you what. Go into
the forest, take a pack of cigarettes, light every one, and drop
them in an area of fve square meters. It won't start a single
fre. Not unless you add gasoline. People lit those fres. All the
sudden, fres started in 200 places around Greece on the same
day. That doesn't happen by accident. It's people who burn
down the forests so they can build there ... "
Breaking new ground
Maybe it's goten worse
Yiannis: An anarchist from Patras
I think we had seven arrests here in Patras in December. The
heaviest case, and one which we are still trying to arrange sup
port, is with an old man who was arrested with a backpack full
of molotovs. But he's a little bit crazy. We're hoping that will
help in his defense and get him a reduced sentence.
Patras is a conservative city because of its history. It has
always been very industrial, and the people here only think I 321
of themselves. Of course this is a problem everywhere, but it
is especially bad here. So after December nothing changed.
Maybe it got worse. The government destroyed the major im
migrant camp here, they bulldozed all the buildings after the
fre. I think most of the immigrants went to Athens, or were
arrested, though there are still many here trying to get on a
boat for Italy. In the summer we tried to set up a social center
but it failed. I don't know what to do. There are a few new
people involved here, but not many. And the fascists are active,
with the help of the police. It's a difcult situation we face.
322
We are an I mage from the Future
The Medi a Tr to Ki l l Memor
A.G. Schwarz
After the massive riots of December ended and the insurrec
tion continued in new forms, the media adapted their counter
insurgency strategy to the new circumstances. In January and
February, mention of the revolt disappeared almost entirely
from the media. There were a couple important exceptions to
this pattern. A few of the more visible and shocking attacks
carried out by anticapitalists in those months were given
sensational coverage completely divorced from the ongoing
struggle that manifested in continuing protests, occupations,
counterinformation, and so forth-all of which had disap
peared from the media. These now "senseless" attacks were
portrayed as the work of the same disconnected and nihilis
tic hooligans who ruined the legitimate student movement
with too much violence in December. The second exception
appeared primarily in the Sunday magazines, which ran
photo- flled retrospectives on December that sympathized
with the high school students, sanitized their participation in
December, forgave their youthful excess, and patted them on
the back for their social consciousness. Because photography
is assumed to be a presentation of reality more obj ective than
the written word, all the images in these pieces succeeded in
the Orwellian exercise of making many of the participants
of December themselves believe what was inarguably a lie:
that the students limited themselves to protests, occupations,
assemblies, and a little fghting on the barricades, but they
were not responsible for the smashings, the burnings, the at
tacks on police. The show of sympathy and the ostensible
acknowledgment of their story made this lie much easier for
the youth to digest. Thus, in a poll released at the time, the
vast maj ority of the youth expressed the belief that the media
coverage in December was completely false and irrelevant,
yet a majority also believed that it was outsiders operating
with unknown motives who were responsible for smashing
the shops. The youth distrusted the media, but they were still
infuenced by them.
In March, the Greek media tacked into a new wind. They
could no longer deny that the revolt was continuing without
losing their monopoly on the social narrative, so they gave
major, fear-mongering coverage to the continuing attacks.
They started with and focused on the daytime anarchist at
tack on Kolonaki, as though the breaking of a few windows
was equivalent to the sacking of Rome (and as though the
barbarians weren't perhaps a bit better than the Romans) .
They also gave coverage to the continuing occupations, par
ticularly in Thessaloniki, where the students had taken over
Aristotelous University in solidarity with the struggle of
the cleaning workers. They mixed up an alleged increase in
crime with the occupation itself, suggesting university asylum
functioned as a safe haven for antisocial crime and should
thus be abolished.
It seems clear that the anarchists themselves were an in
tended target of the media coverage, which sought not only to
build popular confdence in a police solution but to threaten
the anarchists. Building of the frightful Kolonaki spectacle,
the newspapers flled the front pages with articles on new
police measures every day for several weeks in March. Shop
owners called for greater protection to prevent more attacks
like the one in Kolonaki! Police specialists from Scotland
Yard are coming to advise the Greek police! The government
is considering abolishing university asylum! The director of
the university in Thessaloniki may call in the police to end the
occupation! The government will pass a new law outlawing
masks and hoods in demonstrations, and criminalizing the
insulting of police ofcers! A high judge is looking into ways
to evict the squats! The police will create Delta Force, a rapid
response unit to be deployed around the city in teams on
motorcycles, for the express purpose of arresting the crimi
nals responsible for these attacks! On April 5th the Athens
newspaper To Via reported that the police had about twenty
anarchists suspected of participating in the attacks under sur
veillance, and they expected to make arrests soon. The arrests
did not materialize, and in fact over the next months anar
chists demonstrated the capability to carry out attacks against
the very directors of the police and intelligence apparatus and
get away with it. These articles were not a refection of reality,
Breaki ng new ground
rather they were part of the police counterattack to restore
order and show force.
The media also continued their work of distinguishing
the good parts of the revolt from the bad parts. For example in
April, a large and sympathetic article with color photographs
appeared in a major Athens newspaper featuring Nosotros, the
social center of the left anarchist group Alpha Kappa. It por
trayed the space as a cultural center that hosted artistic events
and provided social services, showing that even anarchists can
be embraced by the system if they learn to restrict themselves
to acting in certain ways. It's beyond me to say whether Alpha
Kappa self-censored their combative aspects or whether this
was entirely the initiative of the media, but either way the result
is the same. The same also happened with many sympathetic
articles about the new occupied park in Exarchia.
In May, the media turned their focus on the immigrants
with a vengeance. During the December coverage, they had
separated out the immigrants as the elements responsible
for the looting. In the following months, under the guise of
humanitarian analysis, they looked at the crisis of immigrant
living conditions in Greece in a way that could only sub
stantiate the fascist portrayal of the immigrants as dirty and
disgusting. And of course they interviewed shop owners who,
with the pragmatic voice of mass murderers, insisted that the
immigrants stole things and scared away shoppers; that the
cities needed to be "cleaned up." In May and June, the media
prepared the summer's pogrom.
We are an I mage from the Future
It needs to be explained frst that the European Union
recently enacted a new anti- immigrant law declaring that im
migrants without visas had to acquire papers in the frst EU
country where they arrived. In other wods, they could not
go on to Belgium or Sweden or any of the dominant member
states with a higher standard of living and more social wel
fare, and i f they di d they would be sent back to the country
of entry, if not deported altogether. As Greece is one of the
main entry points, the country as a whole was turned into a
giant border prison, and it was responsible for making it as
diffcult as possible for immigrants to acquire papers. So, for
example, the only place where asylum could be requested in
the entire country was in Athens, and authorities did all they
could to obstruct immigrants travelling from the islands or
Turkish border towns to the capital. And the immigrants who
did arrive had to wait forever just for a simple interview, after
which they were usually denied even the paper that said they
had requested asylum and their case was being considered.
Practically nobody actually got asylum.
In Athens, there were tens of thousands of immigrants
waiting around for their chance to get papers. This visible
concentration of immigrants was successfully exploited by
fascists, and in May the media announced an "immigration
crisis." Naturally, only a policing solution was proposed. In
May and June, the government sharply increased the num
ber of immigrant concentration camps around the country.
These were fenced-in compounds where immigrants were
herded together en masse and locked up against their will.
They called them "Welcome Centers" with much the same
sense of euphemism as when the Nazis called extermination
camps "concentration camps." Amid all the hysteria, the fas
cist party LAOS gained a relatively high number of seats in
the European Parliament elections in June. And in July and
August the police carried out pogroms against the two ma
jor immigrant districts, in Athens and in Patras, destroying
settlements and shipping immigrants of to the concentration
camps or deporting them. In central Athens alone, thousands
were arrested. And where once parts of Omonia had been
bustling immigrant neighborhoods with thousands of people
from dozens of diferent countries on the streets, in public,
at all hours of the day, now they were "cleaned up, " just as
the shop owners had wanted. It was eery, trying to fnd those
streets again, and only seeing pleasant avenues with tourists
strolling hand in hand, browsing postcards outside gift shops,
with nothing to disturb their comfort.
In September, all the media coverage was focused on the
upcoming elections, psychologically preparing the illusion
that the government was going to clean house so that when
the Socialists came into power, they would start with as much
legitimacy as possible. December had successfully challenged
the legitimacy of the State itself, and now the media had to do
a bait and switch, centering specifc controversies in specifc
political parties, so that the losers of December would be N ea
Demokratia and not the government as a whole.
It is necessary to go back and look at the relationship
between the media and LAOS over the last years in Greece.
Though on not quite as large a scale, it seems that LAOS has
mimicked the media machine used by Berlusconi of Italy to
engineer the society, undermine radical movements, and set
the stage for the return of a fascist party as an important politi
cal force. Even before LAOS formed from dissident members
of Nea Demokratia, they had been consolidating control over
several media outlets, so that now the fascists directly own or
control three maj or television stations in Greece. They also have
several infuential tabloid newspapers that focus on voyeuristic
and moralistic celebrity news in the guise of social problems.
In a sort of FOX News efect, as they brought more right
wing commentators and sources into the news programs, the
other news channels were pushed rightwards as well. Perhaps
even more important than the obvious effects on news cover
age, has been the role of talk shows, soap operas, entertainment
programs, and telemarketing, j ust like in the Italian phenom
enon. The fascist television stations pioneered telemarketing
in Greece, providing themselves with potent funding and
fooding the airwaves with infomercials for books, videos, and
other products relating to beauty (in this manifestation a very
racialized notion reifed by blond and brunette models with
lilly-white skin), nationalistic Greek history and mythology,
hunting, weaponry, and paramilitary gear, xenophobia, and
the protection of a homogenous and Orthodox Greek culture,
Jewish conspiracy theories, and more.
Breaking new ground
After December, the celebrity talk shows openly promot
ed fascist and racist ideas and brought personalities from the
far Right into the celebrity market. For example the wedding
of a LAOS parliament member was turned into a celebrity
event through multiple days of news coverage. Hundreds of
people were brought to the wedding itself, making it a spec
tacular and popular happening. It was a clear attempt at social
engineering designed to turn Greek society into a receptive
mass every bit as fashion- obsessed, consumeristic, selfsh, tol
erant of policing and surveillance and unsupportive of social
movements as Italian society has become, a society in which
people hide behind designer sunglasses, chase after Aryan
standards of beauty despise anything poor, ugly, or foreign,
understand politics as a popularity contest, and care more
about the lives of celebrities than about the lives of other
people in their community.
We are an I mage from the Future
Al l the peopl e went back to thei r private
l i ves
Alexander, Thodoris, Vlasis, & Kostas: Two students
and two graduates from Exarchia High School
V: The strongest infuence for ending the riots was the terror
created by the mass media. As the State was facing attacks
against police stations all over Greece, from school to school,
the mass media organized a propaganda campaign obliging
parents to get their kids of the streets and lock them in the
houses.
A: I think that the Christmas holidays were a big factor.
December made me understand that there were people
looking for a revolution, outside of the public view, and that
such a revolution is possible. But still it's not that close.
Things aren't different now. People just realized how close we
are to something like this happening again. And maybe the
politicians are being more careful. But I can't imagine Greece
changing. I think it will always be a democracy.
T Few things changed. What happened is that we gathered
and then we split again. In my opinion each person acts
individualistically and takes care of himself. First and fore
most they want to have a good life, they're worried about how
they' ll survive.
From the time I came to Greece from Albania when I
was three years old until now, nothing has changed. During
December we felt that something could change but then we
realized that all the people went back to their private lives and
nothing really changed. Me, I cannot explain my thoughts so
clearly, but I hope that this new generation will achieve a social
change. It's possible, we will try. In all the days before Decem
ber I would never have imagined this kind of change. And this
keeps me here to dream and participate in the social struggle.
V: A frst step toward general social change could be the
elimination of religion, that keeps the people trapped in
moral codes that prevent a liberated way of thinking and act
ing and awakening. And also another limitation that entraps
us is all this history of national dogmatism, going back ages.
But for me, the biggest threat to all society is the existence
of the police. Unfortunately I cannot imagine how a world
without police could function. But at the same time I won't
trap myself in this and not criticize them, especially when
there are murders.
One thing that has been very important for young people
and students were the DIY bands that they created. Hip-hop,
punk, trance, all kinds of music. They could express their
thoughts in public, be creative, organize solidarity concerts
to help the prisoners of the social struggles. This was going
on before December but it's continuing even stronger now,
especially with the solidarity concerts.
K: After December the State did not change. In a way you
could say that things became even harder, especially for the
immigrants. The riot police beat people much more afer
December and it became harder to go out on the streets and
express your ideas. The only thing that changed is in the soci
ety' in the people, for many of them it was an awakening that
opened their eyes from many years of deep sleep and now
they can see the injustices more clearly. Now . . . what do you
expect me to say to you? That we dream of the revolution? Of
course we do. If we didn't we wouldn't be in the streets every
day talking with people and fghting . . .
Breaking new ground
The Passage to Revol ution
Transgressio Legis
The text below is an attempt at evaluating the insurrectionary
events of December and placing the priority of the passage to
revolution in its proper place. Continuously highlighting this
issue is one of the key elements of our political discourse and
our actions on the practical leveL The death of a ffteen-year
old child at the hands of the modernized security forces of de
mocracy was the beginning of a series of situations, the likes
of which have never existed before in this country. The social
unrest and the destabilization of the government reached
impressive levels, but in our eyes something was missing: the
passage from revolt to revolution. An organized offensive us
ing all available means against the State, the police, and all
the executive offcers of the government, as well as against
its supporters and functionaries, and of course against every
social class that demonstrates a coherent purpose and activity
to obstruct the greater revolutionary goals.
The revolt of December crushed all the practical uto
pian positions that believed such situations could not occur
in modern societies. A perfect, stable utopia that could only be
impugned by direct action and the creative desire for destruc
tion. The political and social status quo, which is endorsed by
We are an I mage from the Future
some of the ideologues of the movement, is the main issue that
must be resolved for revolution to be achieved. The lack of will
and action to promote revolutionary ideas will always bring us
in confict on political and practical levels, and our own choices
will be the best response in the face of pathetic behaviors.
The passage to revolution, therefore, can only take place
through the immediacy of the attacks, which inevitably will
sometimes take on an acute and antisocial nature. We should
admit that the concept of "antisocial" does not bother us in
the least. In fact, we don't tolerate any such characterization,
recognizing that it has been adopted as a negative value by
those comrades who have endorsed normality. Why should
an extremely realistic opinion recently elaborated within an
insurgent urban movement be classifed as antisocial? Why
should we tolerate social groups that only offer us the denial
of the reality of our desires? Why shouldn't we target these
groups? The rej ection of these attacks is the denial of the real
ity of the revolutionary civil war.
"He who accepts the css struggle cannot deny civil wars,
which in any class society represent the continuity and
grwth-physiological and in some cases inevitable j the
class strugle. To deny the civil wars or to jorget about them
would mean to stoop to an extreme opportunism."
-Military Prog of the Proletarian Revolution ( 1 905)
Whoever, therefore, insists on believing religiously in the
greatness of their ideology will always be our enemy no matter
what side they come from. Many people throughout history
have believed that the revolt is a beautiful, romantic fairy tale.
But now that modern society has suffered this blow, do all
these supposed intellectuals and ideologues of the movement
revise their views in order to understand the war we are in?
Shouldn't they take a clear position on this war, and set aside
their stereotypes? Even the mechanisms of government have
understood the situation. When Markogiannakis complained
on TV about the need for a social consensus around law en
forcement and for an anti -terrorism policy, it inevitably divid
ed the community into two rival camps: the petty bourgeoisie
and the rebels, those of us who hope to become revolutionary
subj ects. Anyone who is not among the insurgents is submit
ting to the social consensus of the system.
We must break with this miserable view of laboring away
gradually for an ideal society. The uprising of December has
laid strong foundations and on these we must build our own
world. The only reliable basis for this transition is for the in
surgents to drop their inhibitions and annihilate the existing
social system and all its values.
"It must always be assumed that all the apprpriate conditions
to launch the revolution are already in place. The outbreak oj
rebellion can make them appear."
-uerrilla Warfare: Military Texts (Emesto Che Guevara)
Procrastination must be overcome at all costs. At this point we
should emphasize the need to escalate from the conventional
battlefeld to higher forms of struggle. Of course, the conficts
we encounter along the way are the best teachers for the cre
ation of revolutionary subjects, but an obsession with fxed
forms of struggle often leads the insurgents to ultimately lose
sight of the revolutionary cause.
The confrontational events of December brought many
people into the street battles, with their main target being
the expression of accumulated anger after the murder of a
ffteen-year- old child, helping them reach an initial level of
understanding that the uniformed government assassins, who
had once seemed untouchable, could be injured, bloodied,
and even killed.
The lack of fear in those moments, the new conscious
ness, led to great successes in the December revolt, helping
along some rebellious subj ects as they began the passage to
revolution. What was missing from the rebellious crowd was
the organizational ability and experience in more targeted
and direct attacks, with better results, a shortfall which we
believe will be overcome in the next revolt.
The revolt of December was the greatest response to the
enthusiasts of the capitalist utopia. The brutality of the con
fict was so great that the State avoided a military- style opera
tion, which would have catalyzed the arming of the rebellious
crowd, and then we would all now be experiencing the beauty
of the revolution. For many the revolution still remains an
unknown path they dare not tread. Those, however, who have
decided to cross that line already know the desire to strike
Breaki ng new ground
a lethal blow to all those who want to impose government,
while giving life to more affrmation and action for a differ
ent reality. The only thing we wish for is pain for all those in
power. Plenty of pain and hatred. And not for a moment will
we think of retreating. The fear is for them. The fear, hatred,
and the ashes we will leave behind us.
We are an I mage from the Future
The Unani mi ty of the Fearul
On 2 September, one bomb was detonated at
the Athens Stock Exchange and another at the
building of the Ministry of Thrce and Macedonia
in Thessaloniki. The "Conspiracy of the Cells
of Fire" claimed responsibility releasing the
following communique.
Throughout history, leaders of totalitarian regimes have
aimed for social cohesion. Through this cohesion the mass
human is produced-more fexible, more disciplined, and
more conservative toward the prevalent social behaviors. It
is the contemporary class of these socially integrated citizens
who then discover their common identity and crouch around
the common interest, common aspirations, and desires. All
the loneliness of the western world meets for a moment in the
snapshot of consumerist frenzy.
In Greece during the ' 80s social cohesion was inspired
by the dream of "change" and invested in the owner- mania
of house-building. Multi- storey fats in Athens and Thessalo
niki were built one after another in order to accommodate the
absence of life emerging as family ownership: property. Ev
eryone was seeking their own property as recognition of their
social value. "Neo- Greek" required property- owner status.
In the '90s came new appliances, mortgaged joy, and the
second car. The neo- Greek bourgeoisie were parading their
uselessness in a new environment of technological comfort
and digital pleasure, promised by Greek capitalism. Loans
for new living room couches and electrical appliances be
came routine.
And so the bourgeoisie acquired all the characteristics
of a class. They have common desires, common aspirations,
a common language and no consciousness. Yet they also have
something else, something that in times of crisis becomes
the strongest negotiation strategy for its administrators: they
have common fears. Fear of loss of all these material "ideals"
acquired with so much compromise, tolerance, and humilia
tion. The peaceful bourgeoisie is capable of killing someone,
should they threaten their property. Because in this very
property they have invested everything they are.
In illusions all hopes for a future that will never come
are placed; daily humiliations are soothed, stressed micro
egos get to rest. Leaders invest in the politics of crisis and fear
once the social cohesion of the common dream collapses, as a
natural malfunction of the capitalist machine.
First of all, the notion of a crisis as constantly bombarded
upon us through the media is in itself a military order, an order
dictating social alert. The social fear parading in front of the
unknown of the crisis has its own, very distinct smell. It is the
smell of the cowardliness of all that the bourgeoisie have ac
cepted,all the desires they never discovered, all the humiliations
they never reacted to, all the roles they played in front of the
empty stage of their bourgeois fantasizing. Social fear also has
its own expression-it is vengeful, stingy, and conservative.
Social cohesion is reclaimed by fear. From the religious
crisis of some "god" to the national crises, even their breathe
is tuned in, military style. The entire zombifed society dances
along the rhythms of the crisis, incapable of even realizing
what has happened.
These artifcial alerts act as military exercises against
social polarization. The times they are tested are chosen very
carefully. Because they are not limited to one state, especially
the economic crisis, they acquire different versions between
them, so as to act more effciently.
For example, the current economic crisis in the USA
as a response of the conservative "white" Republicans to the
established Democrats and the restructuring in the health
system serve diferent purposes to the crisis in Greece after
the revolt of December. And also, the crisis with the outbreak
of the new fu also comes to serve other purposes.
The politics of crisis prove to be a rather successful tech
nique because except for the "wise ones" (political authority,
journalists, analysts, "experts" of all sorts) who propagate it,
there is also a stupid audience of the faithful (society) ready
to accept it and take orders.
In Greece, after all, the technique of crisis is a typical.
Often after social tension and clashes, or ruptures caused by
Breaki ng new ground
the enemy within, such crises of national unanimity make
their appearance.
1 991 was the year of the mass school occupations and
the assassination of teacher Nikos Temponeras while the next
year saw the crisis with Skopj e and the Macedonian demon
strations. 1 995 was the year of the largest mass arrest-SOO
people in the Athens Polytechnic-while 1 996 saw the Imia
crisis. l 2008 saw the revolt of December and 2009 was the year
of the migrant crisis, pogroms, concentration camps, Turkish
airspace violations and revelations of the execution of miss
ing Greek- Cypriots by Turkish- Cypriots. This does not mean
to say that events were "produced" in order to disorient the
zombifed public opinion. Imia did not happen to cover the
Polytechnic arrests, nor was the supposed migrant issue high
lighted to cover for December. Plus the fact that the economy
is damaged and collapsing is a reality. The technique of the
crisis is simply the director- like ability to highlight certain
scenes at the right moment, so to direct the viewer's gaze.
Air-space violations and incidents with Greek rocks have
happened many times, and yet in the case of Imia they were
particularly promoted. (Undocumented) migrants have been
living in the centre of Athens for years, and yet it was now that
they had to be "revealed." Illnesses and epidemics exist or are
created constantly, yet once their period of usefulness is over
Skirmishes between the Greek and Turkish armies over a small
rock in the middle of the sea.
We are an I mage from the Future
they disappear without anyone knowing their ending, like in
the cases of the Mad Cow Disease and the Asian fu.
The economy is constantly in the red, this has to be em
phasized. Tables of statistics have no importance whatsoever,
nor do the facts produced by fnancial authorities or fnancial
analyses. What needs to be understood by the revolutionary
force and the new urban guerilla tendency is the social value of
the fnancial crisis, the social value of fear-we need to proceed
to our counter-analyses and to launch an attack on all fronts.
Economy is not a mere math equation, it is a factory for
the production of relationships. The coming elections are
the visible exit from the crisis. They are the diffusion of the
amassed social fear and its replacement by the hope for re
construction of the bourgeois dream. We know that even sad
people, who carry the title of citizen as a badge of honor, think
of elections as outdated-and yet they are the only thing they
have. After all, as we said, illusions and idiocy are nearly to
tally unbeatable, but not without their weaknesses.
Because we, like other comrades of the new urban gue
rilla tendency, do not participate in fxed games, nor do we
participate in the offcial festas (demonstrations), in called
for marches-such as those against the International Expo in
Thessaloniki, we choose our own time to act.
And so at dawn on Wednesday, September 2, we placed a
self-made explosive device consisting of two time bombs and
8 kilos of explosives in the back entrance of the Ministry of
Macedonia-Thrace. In order to avoid inj uries we notifed one
TV station and the police.
The selection of that particular target was a challenge due
to the police protection of the particular location. The police
men by the entrance, the riot police unit in the courtyard, the
police blocks on the adjacent Ayiou Dimitriou St., the patrols
around the building were all a good opportunity for us to
send them run panicking.
Each time that we explain the operational part of a plan
we do so not in order to brag of our fawlessness and brav
ery, that would be nonsense. Whatever we do, we do because
we feel it, and it flls us with meaning. These references to
some operational details take place as an invitation to new
comrades in order to share with them our belief that respon
sibility, good organizing, trustworthiness, comradely feelings,
and decisiveness can attack that which until yesterday seemed
unapproachable.
Afer all, the consecutive attacks that took place in our city
during the summer by diferent groups prove that the new
urban guerilla tendency is already under way and prepares its
own charge. Broken doors, smashed shop fronts, smoke from
the torched buildings, the chaos of sabotage, it's a unforeseeable
network of communication. It is a wy to tell our losses, our
contradictions, our desires, ignoring the registries of authority
and laughing at its established rules. No respect to the authori
ties of this city and its obedient citizens.
We shall return . . .
December Revi sited
Answers from Void Network to Questions from US
comrades
How much were the limits ofthe insurrection imposed from outside,
by the power of the State?
The government trapped in scandals, economical crisis,
and inner conficts is unable to learn from all the ways it was
beaten. An Elite that tries to behave like nothing happened
can do nothing but forget and place the insurrection in an
oblivion.
During the insurrection in the countryside, the towns
and small cities, the external infuences were much stronger
than in Athens and Thessaloniki. For example, in Patras and
in Larisa, both big cities that experienced riots that the po
lice were unable to control for days, small but well organized
groups of neo- nazis together with riot police were searching
for the young people, street by street, and following groups of
high school students from the riots to their houses, frighten
ing them and their parents as well.
In small cities and towns, undercover policemen were
going from shop to shop to spread false rumors and to in
form the owners that wild anarchists were on their way from
Breaking new ground
the big cities to come destroy their shops in the same way
the television was portraying an exaggerated destruction of
small shops in Athens. So when young people, anarchists,
and leftists came out onto the streets of their small town
with no intention to smash anything but banks, police sta
tions, and government buildings, the shop owners treated
them like vandals rather than their own children. However in
most small towns during the insurrection the people gener
ally had an attitude that these were "our own children, " and
the youth and comrades accomplished unbelievable actions
on a local scale.
The infuence of conservativism was also much stronger
in some right wing towns. Conservatism, the power that keeps
our life "as it was," our mind "as we know it," and our activi
ties "as we've always done them, " was the strongest factor for
sustaining normality before, during, and after the riots all
over the country.
Many people opposed the insurrection and they had the
power to express their disapproval much more openly and ef
fectively in the countryside. In some of the towns the maj or
ity of the locals were obviously against the "tendencies" of the
anarchists and the leftists. In these towns it was very diffcult
for the small number of isolated participants to sustain an in
surrectionary enthusiasm for many days, even though in such
places actions still took place day after day for weeks, proving
that the passion for freedom doesn't fear any authoritarian
conservative majority.
334
We are an I mage from the Future
The power of the State existed mainly in radio inter
views, TV programing, and riot police in the streets. The work
of the State was to offer excuses and reinforce the conserva
tive defenses of this society, to sustain normality even in the
middle of chaos, and to express with certainty that nothing
will change; also to suppress the total chaos without having
another dead body on the streets. It was crucial that they do
it without flling up the stadiums with thousands of detain
ees, in order not to create images of dictatorship within the
spectacle of social life.
The work of the mass media, as part of the regime, was
to ofer simplistic excuses for the "children's revolt, " to not
alienate their parents, to avoid speaking seriously about the
specifc reasons behind many targets of smashing and burn
ing, to feed the worst fears of the conservative maj ority and
to portray the anarchists as irrelevant to the phenomenon.
In this way they were building the separation between the
good children and the bad anarchists, immigrants, radicals,
extremists-criminals
How much did the limits come fom the participants themselves?
In big cities and especially in Athens and Thessaloniki,
physical exhaustion had a strong infuence after all those days
of tear gas, running around the city center, hours of assem
blies and all kinds of direct actions, creating and sustaining
street barricades and liberated zones, smashing, burning, and
fghting the riot police, the undercover police, and the neo
nazis over vast areas of the city . . . day after day and through
the nights. The boys and girls sleeping inside the occupied
universities for many days showed heroic physical strength.
When the schools reopened the students had to go back
to class. Three weeks after the start of the revolt the university
students started to think it was possible to lose credit for the
whole academic year if the occupation of the universities con
tinued after Christmas. After three weeks the students took
to the streets less and less. Satisfed by the amazing personal
experience of revolt and revenge against the State, they were
tired from the street fghting. And they were pushed by their
parents to return to normality. The students and youth who
were not politically organized began to lose the feeling of
togetherness of the frst weeks, and started again to express
skepticism towards the attitude, decisions, initiatives, and
political analysis of the anarchists. Many continued to par
ticipate in diferent actions but they began to keep a distance
from the central occupations and riots.
And the workers had their j obs waiting for them. Most
of the participants had to work all day and then they par
ticipated in the actions in the afernoons and evenings, also
expressing an amazing physical strength. The worst moment
of the assembly for the occupation of the General Confed
eration of Greek Workers was when the insurgent workers
started to speak out against spending a long time forming a
deeper analysis because they had to go to sleep so they could
work the next morning. Work was a limitation before, during,
and after the insurrection.
After the third day the immigrants, many of whom lacked
papers, faced a very strong backlash from the police and in
public opinion. Police continued searching for them for
months and in the following summer they arrested thousands
of so-called illegal immigrants.
In the network of assemblies and conversations there
began to reappear many different questions, debates, and the
endless disagreements that characterize the Greek radical
space. Many of these took the form of hostile dichotomies and
enmities, like leftists vs. insurrectionists, antiauthoritarians vs.
anarchists, artists vs. anti -artists, independent media j ourn
alists vs. anti- media activists, direct action vs. political mes
saging, naives vs. extremists, hooliganism vs. antistatism, anti
statism vs. criminality, anarcho-communism vs. post-anarchy,
junkies vs. serious political revolutionaries, looting vs. burning,
and so on. Many people felt this and made conscious efforts
to combat it. But by the third week, many of the debates had
become long and tedious distractions to the disappointment
we felt when we saw that the whole society would not rise up,
a many people hoped it would in the early days.
A maj or defeat came early, when the syndicalist hierarchy
decided to cancel the nationwide general strike scheduled for
December 1 0th. This strike had been announced long before
the death of Alexis, but they cancelled it to avoid generalizing
the insurrection. The historical meeting with the working
class failed to happen once more. Never trust the workers.
The "working class" followed their leaders, their political
Breaking new ground
parties, their own syndicalist institutions, unions and organi
zations, their own idols and ghosts. The workers, the farmers,
the petit-bourgeoisie did everything in its power to help the
regime survive and bring everything back to normal.
So you see, normality was also hiding inside of us, not
only around us.
The submission of the maj ority to the status- quo and the
habitual repetitive behavior of work and consumption kept
millions of people of the streets. The inability of the insur
rection to explain politically the reasons for the actions and
to expand this understanding on a scale that could address
the problems of common people was a failure that kept the
entire society from exploding, from taking up the revolt and
continuing it with their own decisions and actions.
For sure, people were not ready for social change, not
even for a general confrontation with their own realities. The
death of Alexis fell like a thunderclap on their pathetic situa
tion but most of them were unable to understand what caused
their own children, their own friends, their own neighbors, to
revolt. The society could feel it, they could express empathy,
but they were not ready to translate it into a political confron
tation with the regime.
In an insurrectionary way of thinking we can say that
now, after the insurrection, the consciousness of millions of
people has stepped forward and this is the main achievement
of the revolt. The insurrection opens horizons. Many things
336
We are an I mage from the Future
that will happen in the future could never have happened
before December.
All the thousands of people who participated offered an
invitation to the others, the silent maj ority. When this silence
flls your ears, echoing of the streets of a crowded city that
wants to come back to normality after four weeks of endless
riots and all kinds of actions, an inner voice forces you to pack
up all the inspiration and experience you have won for your
self, to go back to your collective and continue the struggle
from there.
Even with most of the markets destroyed the society
generated a strange need to reproduce a pseudo- celebratory
Christmas. Even though all the walls of the city were painted
with the slogan "Christmas Postponed, We Have Insurrec
tion" and the smoke of the tear gas and the smell of burned
banks and the ashes of luxury shops still hung in the air, and
the death of Alexis flled everyone's thoughts, Christmas hap
pened on December 25 j ust like every other year. The fucking
mayor announced during New Year's Eve from Syntagma
Square, next to the brand new Christmas tree, this one pro
tected by riot police, that we are all one, that we are all the
same, and we are happy! Thousands of poor immigrants were
clapping their hands below the stage, though they hardly
understood a word. The three central occupations in Athens
(Polytechnic, Nomiki, ASOEE) dissolved one or two days
before Christmas.
And you walk in the city center with your friends, four
o'clock on New Year's morning, and there are no riots any
more, and you want to smash everything around you and start
again from the beginning. And an inner instinct says to you
that there is still a lot of work to do before this world will
explode . . . And the insurrection continues traveling in space
and time, but still you feel that something is missing, and
there are a lot of things we have to take care of.
In what ways were the limits of the insurrection determined by
factors in place before it started, such as the infrastructure of an
tiauthoritarian groups and projects and the culture of resistance
in Greece?
For many decades the uncompromising fght of anar
chists against the State and capitalism has found its chief
expression in the confrontation with all the various bureaus
and branches of police across the planet, as can be seen by
the local police sections of Prague, Seattle, Genoa, Thessa
loniki, Maastricht, Nice, Rostock, Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris,
Cancun, Santiago, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Mexico City,
Hamburg, St. Paul, Turin, Johannesburg, Miami, Seoul, and
many other places. Of course, as the State is not a castle, the
police are not the maj or protector of the State. Social apathy,
habit, acceptance of status, and fear of change are perhaps
even stronger protectors of the State than the army, and the
comrades in Greece know this well. But, during the "Days for
Alexis," the police were the primary target of the attack. The
reasons were obvious this time even to the conservatives. The
struggle was righteous even for the reformists. The anarchist
common-sense for once met with the social common- sense.
Unfortunately, common- sense is a great obstacle to wisdom.
The target of the struggle itself, the police, was the
greatest limitation to the expanding of the insurrection to a
general social insurrection. For most of the common people
the police brutality was the target of this struggle and the
anarchists, used to fghting against the police for ages, fought
hardest alongside the people who wanted to express their
rage against police brutality, together with them, sometimes
even following them.
But generally they were unable to take the majority of the
people with them in a total negation of the roots of the regime
and against the real causes of this and all the other murders
carried out by the State and capitalism. Most of the people
were not ready yet to travel to the roots of their slavery. The
society was not ready to face its own failures in the clear light
of insurrection.
And the people in the struggle did not expand the dia
logue as necessary, to encompass all sides of everyday life.
Of the hundreds of communiques released, only a few could
really ofer an inspiring political explanation and a solid orga
nizational solution. The affnity groups and the initiatives had
the capability to ofer high- quality analysis of the conditions
and a hard critique of the regime, but they hadn't enough
experience to spread enthusiasm for a social victory visions
of a world that could appear from the ashes of the old world,
Breaking new ground
practical escape routes the dead- ends of a neoliberalism in
serious crisis, images from the future we are dreaming of, ap
plicable plans for continuing the struggle once everything is
already smashed and burned.
So when the rage started to fade there were no solid an
swers as to what should come next. Not even in our craziest
dreams had any of us come so far. We walked for days and days
like shadows inside our own struggles, wondering, through
the smoke of the tear gas, about each next step.
Who has the proper answers, who can even narrate this
story, who can offer solutions and answers about the way to
general social insurrection? No one wanted to oblige the so
ciety to go further and the anarchists always dislike this role.
Four weeks after the assassination of Alexis everyone knew
that this is not a revolution and so nobody gave specifc an
swers for what we had to do in order to go further. What could
we do to keep the riots from ending? Is the never ending riot
the way to social insurrection?
Most people that participated in the insurrection say that
it didn't end. We fnd great truth in this, as thousands of us
participate and stay active in many proj ects, struggles, and
assemblies that were created after December in all the cit
ies and towns. For most people Alexis is still alive. In today's
struggles you can fnd him smiling behind actions, demon
strations, creative plans, and destructive visions
Wat conicts have developed after the upriing between grups
that participated in it together? Are there bonds and connections
We are an I mage from the Future
that were possible to maintain during the uprising that have brken
down since then?
During the insurrection many old friends lost each other
forever and people or groups that hated each other for decades
worked in proj ects and actions together. Many old groups
transformed into something completely different and many
new affnity groups have been created. As most of the Greek
anarchists don't like each other, and deep diferences separate
groups and people, no one can speak defnitively about what is
happening and nobody clearly understands what is prepared
and by whom. This total fragmentation is very useful dur
ing periods of "social peace" as it produces a vast variety of
opinions, analysis, and initiatives. The police cannot infltrate
the movement, since such a thing does not exist. Hundreds
upon hundreds of groups, people who've known each other
for many years and share total trust and empathy they meet,
appearing as if from nowhere and return to nowhere.
In a way, all this fragmentation created the strange situ
ation where all these people, who knew each other for years
but would never talk to each other, were suddenly speaking,
spending time together, and fghting side by side. December
produced strong feelings of solidarity and common struggle.
In the frst months of 2009, huge assemblies, mostly
accommodated in the university amphitheaters late in the
afternoon, were taking place nearly every day. Sometimes
people from one assembly started to participate in the one
taking place before it, as they waited for it to fnish and for
.
the next one to start. Some of them, for example the As
sembly for Solidarity with Immigrants, for Solidarity with
December's Prisoners, the Fight for Worker Konstantina Ku
neva, the Assembly of the School and University Students,
the Assembly of Insurgent Doctors and Nurses, of Insurgent
Artists, the Assembly of Unknown Artists, the Assembly of
The Ones Here and Now and For All of Us, the Assembly of
Workers and Unemployed, the Exarchia Neighborhood Ini
tiative Committee, and many other Committees in diferent
neighborhoods, as well as assemblies happening in other cit
ies all over the country, were gathering from 1 00 to 400 active
people every week. And to all these general insurrectionary
assemblies of course we have to add all the separate meet
ings of collectives and groups that were participating in these
general assemblies.
Throughout these months there was a poster on the walls
of Athens with a wildly naive dadaist monster saying: "Obedi
ence Ended! Life is Magical! " and for most of us this magical
life was to jump from assembly to assembly preparing un
believable things and putting them in practice with all those
people. Those assemblies brought to life all diferent kinds of
actions and proj ects and visions and crazy dreams you had
from when you were ffteen years old or from last week's late
night talk with some friends or some secret plan you had with
your lover and now was coming true.
Most of the initiatives and the assemblies of artists, ro
mantics, non- ideological people, and creative activists shrank,
lost the enthusiasm of the frst week and became smaller and
more solid creative groups. Various reasons forced people
from these assemblies to go back to their individual creativity
but many of these groups are still dedicated to their proj ects.
Week after week, and as people were coming closer and
closer, the old conficts, the differences, the diverse political
standpoints and the different needs, expectations, strategies,
and methods started to appear again. This brought back to
the surface the old separations and the old debates. It proved
that the differences were not j ust ephemeral misunderstand
ings or personal distrust but were based in deep analysis and
long-term differences of practice and ways of thinking.
The interesting thing was that even though most of these
general assemblies split or started to attract fewer people and
to have less power and less infuence, new ways of organizing
appeared. After some months of meetings the whole political
space took new directions. The general assemblies were not
useful anymore as new coalitions, new friendships, and new
contacts appeared. Different squats, social centers, and initia
tives started to form after the end of the general assemblies.
People and groups that met during the insurrection and the
period of open creativity and massive open meetings after
December now had experience with each other, they knew
if they agreed or disagreed, they knew what were the direc
tions and strategies of each group and so new projects, plans,
and solid decisions took place. In this way the anarchists and
other insurrectionists and radical activists avoided conficts.
Breaki ng new ground
The melting pot of general assemblies broke into much more
efective meetings, laboratories of creative chaos, squats, and
direct actions.
How effective has goverment repression been in weakening the
movements that started the uprising? Wat have been the most ef
fective ways to resist this repression?
A basic characteristic of the Greek anarchist space is that
through the infuence of insurrectionary practices it refuses
to see itself as a homogenous "movement" and especially as a
movement of "resistance" or "direct action." The idea of direct
attack is much more infuential. The momentum of the attack
is controlled by the groups and the initiatives and not by any
collective, central decision-making process.
1 339
Of course, in periods of social mobilization like the dem
onstrations against the privatization of education or of health
and public insurance or in big events like the European Union
Summit or the G8 there is coordination and communication
between the groups. But even under these circumstances
the initiative for the direct attack is taken by the groups and
individuals. This makes the things very complicated for the
State and also for the people. No one can decide what will
happen, no one knows what actually transpired until it has
already happened.
The anarchist space has the ability to appear very power
ful and disappear completely from the stage of confrontation,
for short periods of recovery. These short periods without riots
hypnotize the State and make the government believe it has
We are an I mage from the Future
other more important things to care about. In these periods
of calm, the eye of authority is not focused on the anarchists.
Meanwhile the arson groups commit unstoppable attacks
against all kinds of targets. During these periods hundreds
of assemblies, events, public talks, flm shows, free festivals,
parties, lectures, workshops, and public non- confrontational
demonstrations assure the visibility of the anarchists, au
tonomists, and anarcho- libertarians. All these political and
cultural processes are also responsible for the never ending
attraction of new people, the replacement of burnt- out people
with fresh ones in the frontline of the riots and the prepara
tion for a new circle of intense confrontation.
It is like a wave. When it's up you can see it in the news,
on T in the streets, everywhere. When it's down, you don't
see it but you feel it. You meet with the wave because it is
coming to you and moving unstoppably through the initia
tives of thousands of different people.
What are some of the ways that people have had to "recover"frm
the uprising? Legal troubles? Emotional truma? Exhaustion?
There was not any emotional trauma from December.
The use of molotov cocktails heals the crowds' panic and fear
and takes back control of the streets from police. Molotovs
used as a defensive tool can keep the riot police away long
enough for everyone to run away safely and recover from the
tear gas or avoid arrest. When molotovs are used as ofensive
weapons together with hundreds of stones from broken pave
ment they give courage to the crowds and spread a feeling of
massive power and the belief that they can accomplish amaz
ing things.
As a slogan from December put it: "Action replaces
Tears."
Many people participated in the solidarity movement for
the sixty-fve that were arrested and who stayed in custody for
two to eight months. Now all of them are free. The solidarity
movement that took over the streets with massive demonstra
tions and counter-information, that held massive fundraising
concerts and organized movement lawyers has made clear to
Greek anarchists that in the years to come solidarity must be
one of the main methodologies of any movement that wants
to participate in a serious confrontation with the regime.
There was no need for "recovering" after December. We
also have to clarify that there was no end to the insurrection
and especially no ending caused by legal troubles, emotional
troubles, exhaustion, or repression. Rather, the anarchist
space, in an instinctual and intelligent way, chose to disappear
from the central highways and put into practice many other
low - tension initiatives that enrich the struggle. This wise, self
preserving urban guerilla strategy also fnds its expressions in
the appearance of many different proj ects that started after
December and now help the "movement" to deepen its roots
in the society and in the local communities.
How has the government used the upn"sing strtegically to strength
en its position, since December? Could this have been avoided?
The government didn't fnd ways to use the insurrec
tion to strengthen its position. It was diffcult to do such a
thing as the insurrection was spread among all social classes
and backgrounds. Only the immigrants were brought into a
worse position as they faced a backlash and the police po
grom against those without papers, that occurred in June. The
solidarity shown toward immigrants was strong but unable
to protect them. A lot of effort is going into bringing the im
migrants closer to the anarchist space but this task is not easy
at all. The immigrants have their own limitations, their own
interests, their own fears and wishes. Many of them they have
a very diffcult life and very diferent cultural and political or
non-political backgrounds.
In what ways has the uprising put anarchists in a strnger position?
In what ways has it used up energy without putting anarchists in
a strnger position? Are there any ways it has put anarchists in a
weaker position?
The anarchist movement in Greece underwent a lot of
methodological changes over the last years in its eforts to
come closer to society, to hear the problems of the people,
to avoid an anti-social attitude without falling into reform
ism, and to try to fnd ways to participate in and radicalize
the social movements of our times. All these eforts bore fruit
during December.
The social centers that opened in all maj or cities of
Greece during the last years, rented or squatted, ofered the
best preparation for the creation of strong, active circles of
Breaki ng new ground
fghters and assemblies able to produce and spread analysis
and propaganda everywhere.
Anarchist participation in the social struggles of the stu
dents and workers during the last years was also very impor
tant, and it utilized two main strategies, changing according
to the circumstances:
1) Separate, visible anarchist blocs, with fags, banners,
posters, and pamphlets.
2) Radical direct action, smashings, attacks on the police
with molotovs, sticks, and stones.
In this way the Black Bloc spread throughout the whole
body of these mass demonstrations, even if only a minority
were participating. The adoption of these two strategies by
all anarchists according to the tension of the social struggle
and the available momentum produced a common ground
for different comrades and eliminated inner conficts. And
the anarchist participation empowered those social struggles,
gained respect from other political organizations, produced
common ground with many different social subj ects and attr
acted many new people to anarchy.
The defense of Exarchia and other areas like it in Greece
as autonomous public zones, including street corners and
an everyday presence in "our own" cafes and bars, ofered
a constant meeting point that empowered the relations, the
connections, and the coordination of actions. The creation of
anarchists squats, social centers, occupied rooms in universi
ties, concerts, events, flm showings, and assemblies offered a
We are an I mage from the Future
sustainable ground for the cultivation of anarchist ideas and
practices.
All these conditions are much more powerful now after
December and it doesn't seem that there is any way to put
ourselves in a weaker position. As long as we maintain the
ability to listen to the heart and understand the mind of the
society, the State cannot defeat the anarchists.
Are you working with new people since December? More people?
Many young people who participated in the riots con
tinue to avoid any political participation, so you will see many
new people in the free festivals, DIY concerts, underground
rave parties, and even the demonstrations, but not in the as-
342
semblies or discussions; however the youth in general seem
to be much more critical towards mainstream TV culture
than they were before December. On the other hand there
is a whole new generation of young anarchists, especially
in the countryside, who have become politically active. But
the greatest achievement of December is that thousands of
people who were anarchists before December but did nothing
more than hang around in Exarchia or go to some demonstra
tions have now become active, they have found confdence in
themselves, and they are organizing different proj ects, writing
pamphlets, taking part in the struggle.
Are the arguments and diagreements diferent? For example
when you disagree with someone, does it end the same way now as
before December or is there more possibility, more learning, more
solidarity?
This unfortunately has a lot to do with personal relations
and local ways of analysis. For sure, it is different from city to
city. As an example, the classical confict between the diferent
sections of Alpha Kappa and the Black Bloc difers completely
from city to city. In some areas the people are old friends who
hate each other, in other places they organize demonstrations
together, in other cities they don't even say hello. In some cities
the punks like the Black Bloc and in other cities they punch
each other in the squares. In some cities the anarcho-junkies
hate the Black Bloc, in other cities they show respect. In some
cities the anarcho-hooligans fght with the Black Bloc, in other
cities they fght with Antiauthoritarian Current.
The classical technique for solving theoretical and practi
cal diferences in the Greek anarchist space continues to be
the trading of punches between two crowds, in the middle
of the square or during a party in the university or some day
after two people have had a fght. These continue to happen
same as always. There are always people in every group who
try to avoid this method, but it is still a common practice.
Generally speaking, December gave all kinds of groups an
excuse to explain the spirit and the meanings of the insurrec
tion in their own way. Everybody fnds the absolute verifca
tion of their own beliefs and conclusions within the spirit of
the insurrection. In the long run this fact might cause bigger
disagreements than before. For the time being, many people
try to create bridges and keep the personal communication
open between diferent people and theoretical streams.
Are there any weaknesses the movement is refusing to look at?
Yes, obviously there are many weaknesses because if they
didn't exist we would have completed the "revolution." But do
we have the time to think about our weaknesses, to reconcile
our conficts, renegotiate our beliefs and rearrange our strate
gies? Unfortunately after the self-validation of December the
egoism of many comrades only got stronger, so it's more dif
fcult to look at the weaknesses.
On the other hand, a great diference between the Greek
movement and the US movement, for example, is that we
don't spend so much time analyzing our defeats, we don't
speak on public radio, in magazines, newspapers, or books
about our problems. We don't overemphasize our inabilities
and of course we don't write books or pamphlets or posts
on the internet about our inner conficts and our different
opinions on a specifc subj ect. In a way, this is much better.
The weaknesses of the movement are not written in books or
on the internet, you face them on the street, behind the bar
ricades, outside of the assemblies, or you speak about them
on a street corner, late at night, drunk, face to face with your
friends and comrades.
Were do you think the movement will be one year from now?
It will be in many different new squats and in the old
ones. In new social centers and in the same old squares, the
Breaking new ground
old cafes and new bars created by friends and comrades, a
place to feel safe, where you can speak about everything. It
will be in taverns getting drunk together, building courage for
late night attacks against riot police squads around the city. It
will be hunting the neo-nazis from street to street in order to
fuck them. Where do you think the movement will be?
I t will be in a war against apathy, stupidity, and defeat-
ism. It will be in arson attacks against all kinds of State and
capitalist targets. It will be in free festivals and crazy all night
parties, it will be drunk and happy having sex or fnding a
new boyfriend. It will be in the smile of a young boy behind
his mask and in the hands of a girl throwing stones at the
policemen. It will be all around the country, in the posters
on the walls, the communiques, the books, the hundreds of 343
new blogs talking about new actions. It will be in the graf-
fti everywhere, an "a" in a circle, or the squat symbol, or the
symbol of chaos, the symbol of entropy, the symbol of void
or j ust your tag, your name that means Fuck The Police . . .
I t will be i n the heart of thousands of new people all around
the world and it will be here still, on the same spot where the
State assassinated Alexis, defending it from the rank smell of
the policemen.
Has the movement gotten more or less arrogant since December?
In the Greek language "arrogant" means the person who
believes that he is more important than he is, or the person
who underestimates those around him. In this way, yes, many
people from the movement became more arrogant towards
We are an I mage from the Future
the State and the police. But many people try to keep them
selves in mental balance with dark j okes.
"Arrogant" in Greek also means a specifc stance of a war
rior's body, to not feel fear and to stand still and proud while
defending your point, to have the power to defend your turf
and expand into the territory around you. Arrogant means
to have the inner power to start fghts with enemies who are
much stronger than you. In this way, yes, the movement be
came much more arrogant.
Can you describe contact you have with people who were previ
ously outside of your circle? What new communication and con
nections do you have?
344
N ever speak in public about your communications and
your connections, especially with people you don't know or
with people you don't trust 1 00%. This is the best form of
communication with people previously outside of your circle.
Of course, during this year of insurrection all of us gained
some great new friends and comrades from a vast cultural
background and from different economic classes.
What is something that anarchists are doing now that they never
did before?
Trying to connect between two powers through the ac
tivity of the same people. As you Destroy, you also Create,
smashing and burning while making living, functional alter
natives. This is an end to the separation between violence and
non-violence forever: the violent becomes the non-violent
and the non- violent becomes a monster that can confront all
kinds of power. There is no morality of non-violence anymore
in Greece, even the non - violent activists agree with this. There
are no non-violent anarchists, and even the sensitive, naIve
romantics are ready to confront the tear gas, build barricades,
and fght the police.
As one poster proclaimed from walls all over Athens just
before the elections, "Sometimes the most violent thing is to
do nothing. Don't vote! "
Violence and Non-Violence are not identities or morals.
The same people who fght against the police have the experi
ence and the knowledge to create a park, make non- confron
tational political and social demos, write a book, sing a song,
play with children in the playground. The same people who
make art happenings and dance in front of the police with
the drums and the puppets will fght back with molotovs and
stones along with the Black Bloc when the police come closer,
and they will help their comrades to escape. The same people
whom you will meet behind the barricades are the people
who will organize a grocery shop with organic vegetables and
fruits from the anarchist farms, and all of them participated
and will participate again together in the insurrection.
The way that non- violent practices blend into an insur
rectionary context is happening here for the frst time and it is
one of the most extraordinary things to arise after December.
The methodology with which the same people express both
of these identities in an open and all inclusive experiment
produces an explosive new social reality. It destroys the sepa
ration between insurrectionism and the creation of alterna
tives in an effort to avoid the transformation of insurrection
into a new separate identity or lifestyle and at the same time to
keep the social struggles from falling into reformism. The one
strategy can overpass and solve the limitations of the other in
a complementary and not an antagonistic manner.
How will anarchists overcome the power of the media?
. . . and how we will overcome nationalism, conservatism,
cynicism, apathy, and the infuence of the heavily controlled
public or private mass education'
Possibly we will overcome the power of the media only
through the building of a strong underground anarchist
culture, that will include thousands of dedicated "amateur
intellectuals" in the same way that it now includes thousands
of amateur DJ s or punk band members. We will overcome
the power of the media through the free distribution of all
kinds of cultural products, books, cds, dvds, hand to hand and
face to face. If we count, for example, that many hundreds of
these things were published this year in Greece-each at be
tween 1 000 and 4000 copies and distributed for free all over
the country-you can imagine that whole libraries could be
flled with underground cultural products of theory, creativity,
and propaganda if thousands of people put this approach into
practice through personal and collective eforts.
When we transform information and culture into a
gift our culture and information gains the highest possible
Breaki ng new ground
authenticity and respect from the common people. Through
the organization of meeting points, events, and flm showings
we can transform information into a collective power. We have
to entice people out of their prison cells of mainstream stu
pidity and into a culture without spectators or spectacles. And
we can expand the mistrust of the people towards the corpo
rate media through widespread anti -media campaigns, and
through the total refusal to collaborate with the mass media
in any way. This is a long- term strategy that in the meantime
will cause people to rely on the I nternet for information when
something really important is happening.
We have to create our own myths, our own information,
our own incredible actions and to cover them by ourselves.
The people are not stupid. Society knows that TV news is full
of lies and the younger generation doesn't watch TV news
anyway.
But are we capable of really breaking the status of the
big media corporations with our creativity? Are we capable of
producing such interesting theory, such fascinating flms, and
such great stories? Are we ready to live great adventures that
will spread in seconds all over the planet? Are we capable of
fnding ways to explain our visions to adults, even though we
are adults ourselves? Are we ready to capture the focus of this
society and offer an exit from here and some obvious, clear
reason to break down the doors that keeps us locked inside?
Wat new tools and strategies do people have since December?
The most important characteristics are:
We are an I mage from the Future
I } Consistency: efforts to offer answers and direct re
sponses to all the moves of the State and to keep the fght
alive with actions and events that take place almost every day.
Also, there are conscious eforts to avoid suicidal or sacrifcial
moves that will cause arrests or hard defeats. The riots and the
clashes with the police are well organized, well equipped, and
they occur at the place and time when they'll have the great
est possibility of causing the most damage without paying
a high price or putting people in serious danger. With these
victories the struggle attracts new people.
2} Political Work: based on direct connection with the
problems of the society and not on ideological abstractions.
The eforts to listen to the society, keep in contact with the
worries and fears of the people, give answers where it seems
that there are no answers, and attack the causes of the prob
lems, not j ust the results. The ability of the movement to play
a serious role in the political world of the country depends
on the creation of deep roots in the social struggles and the
ability to inj ect anarchist ideas and practices into the hearts
of common people and young radicals. This happens through
the personal cultivation of critical minds and the collective
creation of open, all-inclusive, public confrontation with all
forms of authority.
3} Cultural Work: the meetings, the assemblies, the
squares, the parks, and the public life tend to include people
who have the courage to fght and the capability to think
and create. For the frst time in many years anarchists now
are ready to achieve high visibility in this society and attract
new people not only through their destructive power but also
through the defense of public spaces (like the parks) , and
the creation of political spaces (like the squats and the social
centers). Also important is the collective culture that allows
all individuals to beneft from the communes without losing
their personalities within them, as happens in the Left tradi
tion of organizing.
4} Constant Spreading of Counter- Information: the
importance of typography, (not digital printing but 70cm x
50cm ofset printing!) for printing thousands of copies of
large posters and sticking them everywhere is vital. As all
diferent groups produce many diferent posters, a whole
spectrum of theory appears on the walls of the city. You don't
need to read anarchist books anymore. The theory is on the
walls! Of course it is also very important to use ofset ma
chines for thousands of copies of communiques and books
that you hand out for free in your city. These practices go
together with the unstoppable use of spray paint to write po
litical slogans on every wall, signed with the circle-A, and to
remove any neo-nazi graffti. Also comrades go frequently to
the central square of their city with a small electric generator
and small sound system to play their music and read of their
communiques, and to pass out pamphlets. With this method
of counter-information they attract the focus of the people to
specifc social struggles, they raise solidarity and have endless
dialogues with passersby.
Some important struggles and strategies, as examples:
The neighborhood assemblies, organized with invitation
posters from door to door, offer answers to local problems and
connects them with general social problems.
The occupied parks offer a direct connection between
ecological problems and everyday urban life and produce new
liberated public spaces where diferent kinds of people can
meet and co- exist (or try to co- exist) .
The different new squats enable all different styles of
anarchist thinking to achieve visibility.
The new social centers offer workshops, free lessons,
free food, cheap alcohol, free books, lectures, flm shows, DJ
sets, concerts, and open social meeting points for all kinds
of people. They connect the political activists with common
people and young students
The small urban guerilla arson groups continue fght
ing. Formed by people who know and trust each other 1 00%
they continue to upgrade their weekly attacks against capital
ist and state targets. The huge catalog of arson attacks create
a map of institutions, corporations, banks, and offces that so
ciety has to eliminate from social life for the people to be free
and equal. In this way, the arsonists offer the society a signal
that elevates mistrust of these specifc targets and encourages
suspicion regarding the exploitive function of these targets.
The active anarchist student groups don't allow the
bourgeoisie to control the university. These groups com
municate day by day with each other and with all other
Breaking new ground
students. They turn the university into a public space that
can accommodate tons of public events every week, organized
by comrades from other political and cultural collectives as
well. Of course leftist organizations and cultural groups also
participate in the struggle to defend university asylum and
the struggle for keeping the universities open to the public
overnight.
The defense of public autonomous zones like parks and
urban hills, universities as well as urban areas, street corners,
squares, and meeting points like Exarchia and other similar
points in the rest of Greece from police, mafa, drug dealers,
neo-nazis and capitalist investors brings the people together.
These meetings in public space produce an explosive mixture
of all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds who get
used to facing the policeman, the mafa, the drug dealer, the
neo-nazi and the investor as an enemy. The day to day meet
ings in the public space empower the groups and the com
panies of friends to be ready and capable of fghting against
the enemies at a moment's notice and to imagine that this
area is something completely different from the surrounding
territory.
The empowerment of the imagination, intelligence, and
critical mind is the best strategy.
The solidarity movements encourage the people to
continue fghting and take care, as much as possible, of the
prisoners of this war.
348
We are an I mage from the Future
The open public solidarity for all prisoners, criminal
and political prisoners equally, expresses the total negation
towards prison institutions, reveals the real causes of crimi
nality in this society and brings the anarchist prisoners closer
with all other prisoners, gaining respect and support for them
inside the prison.
The fght for Kostantina Kuneva and all other workers
sends a direct message to the bosses that when they hit one
of us they have to confront all of us. Also, it proves that the
collective struggle can reveal subj ect matters and attract the
focus of all society.
All direct syndicalist struggles self- organized from the
base prepare in the consciousness of the people, year after
year, a deep- rooted, radical strategy that intervenes in the
sphere of work.
Indymedia works like a strategic center for the organiza
tion of the struggles and as a digital public space where all the
announcements, debates, and invitations can gain attention.
In a way, all comrades start their day reading the indymedia
calendar to decide what social action or assembly they will
participate in.
The creation of pirate communal radio stations and
digital radio stations in universities and social centers sends
the message of resistance on the radio waves and creates cul
tural and political communities around them.
The critical mass parades, the street parades, the free
party movement, the illegal rave parties, the squat events, the
DIY concerts, the socially aware hip- hop, punk, indie rock,
drum ' n bass, techno & trance scenes attract thousands of
young people to temporarily liberated public zones. They of
fer an existential contact with the underground cultures and
the radical movements. The gatherings of the underground
cultures, when they are connected in solidarity with the an
archist political space, offer an experiential introduction to
the political and social awareness that cannot be replicated
in books.
The demonstrations in malls and luxury areas or in the
metro stations transfer the message of insurrection to priva
tized public spaces at the center of capitalistic illusions.
The occupation of the National Opera Hall and inter
ruption of the commercial shows created an example of a
meeting point between the sphere of the arts and philosophy
and the insurrectionary practices and ideas.
The occupation of the building of the General Confed
eration of Greek Workers created a public, visible negation of
the role of syndicalist leadership in the failures of workers'
struggles over the last 1 00 years.
The occupation of the ofces of the newspaper editors
by insurrectionary j ournalists and comrades active in the cre
ation of underground media produced a lively meeting point
for direct criticism to appear against the role of mass media in
the building of social apathy.
The occupation of the National Television Station stu
dio by young artists and activists trashed the speech of the
prime minister, expanded mistrust of the mass media, and
sent the message onto the screen of every house in Greece:
"Switch Off Your TV Come Into The Streets."
Occupations of government buildings and municipali
ties all over the country sent a message to society of a diferent
understanding of public institutions and constituted victori
ous fghts in different causes and struggles.
The anti-nazi struggle sends the message that there is
no mercy for the enemies of freedom.
The anti - nazi demonstrations in solidarity with the
immigrants made obvious to all immigrants that we are
standing on their side (but not without criticism of their own
limitations) .
Videos and media work uploaded to the Internet and
used by mainstream TV channels proved that the police are
working with neo- nazis against the immigrants and the social
movements. Also they proved to everybody that the neo- nazis
are a tool, the long hand of the State against any kind of social
resistance.
Independent amateur videos, like the video of the as
sassination of Alexis or moments of police brutality, played
a very important role in the building of a new kind of public
opinion.
The creation of hundreds of blogs by all kinds of initia
tives offered a digital space for the direct expression of the rea
sons and the theory of each struggle and attracted thousands
Breaki ng new ground
of readers and participants. The blogs broke the authority and
monopoly of mainstream mass media forever.
The unstoppable writing, printing, and hand to hand free
distribution of hundreds of different publications, pamphlets,
books, cds, dvds and the creation and display of thousands
of posters in all cities bring the analysis to a level capable of
covering many different subj ects and reaching nearly every
part of society. Also, they express the anarchist way of think
ing directly to the other people of our times, and not through
abstract theories and ideological labyrinths.
W have seen immigrants closed in concentration camps,
we saw normality taking revenge expressed in laws as threats,
we saw conservatism be the guardian and the protector of the
worst side of humanity, we saw greed and exploitation de
stroying our most beautiful dreams together with the forests,
beaches, parks, squares, and hospitals. We saw apathy im
prison our lives in fortress-like cities of commerce and mass
stupidity . . .
Maybe now we are closer to the point of no return. To
reach this point perhaps we all should have resigned from our
j obs last year in December . . . Perhaps the unemployed had to
replace the uncertainty of "personal failure" with the pride of
an insurgent collective risk. Maybe the students had to leave
school for at least a year of holidays, rediscovering the mean
ing of public education. Then, the creation of thousands of
new websites, blogs, free movies, books, dvds, and pamphlets
could undermine the dominance of the mass media. Free
We are an I mage from the Future
underground festivals can destroy the "mass entertainment
industry" and occupied universities can offer free accommo
dation, food, counter-information and meaningful entertain
ment for thousands of people every evening.
We have to live collectively again, redefning contempo
rary political philosophy and revolutionary art. Perhaps the
creative teams of friends, the affnity groups, the occupied
parks, the squats and the social centers can become points
for bringing alive all those dreams we lost in the selfshness
of our small, insignifcant, individual illusions. We may have
to fght against many fears, traps, deeply rooted lies, psycho
logical complexes, and insecurities. And then we will link our
daily lives with the most magical secret desires to transform
the streets of Metropolis in precious moments of freedom
and happiness.
The insurrection never ends.
The insurrection will never end.
Maybe we need to start thinking about how the world we
would like to live in looks like. We must use moments and im
ages of our present life that we want to expand and activate in
all their signifcance. We don't need any science-fction plan
for our future. We have everything here and now. We have to
liberate it all from the State and the market and share it.
Revolution is when the society takes life in its hands and
everything that now is merchandise again becomes a gift.
Revolution is One Thousand Insurrections, nothing more,
nothing less. Insurrections open paths, liberate space and
time, reprogram Daily Life, change the relations, invent new
words, break hierarchies, smash taboos and fears and limita
tions, achieving the highest possible public participation in
proj ects and infrastructure that give us the chance to expand
ourselves and share our abilities without limits. Insurrections
are a never ending fght, a constant struggle between despera
tion and self-restraint, apathy and action, fear and decisive
ness, needs and passions, obligations and desires, obstacles
and break-outs. Is it even possible to imagine such a thing?
The experience of the insurrection showed us that those wild
dreams we were too embarrassed to admit can actually be
come reality.
-Void Network [Theory, Utopia, Empathy, Ephemeral Arts]
What Greece Means (to me) for Anarchi sm
A.G. Schwarz
Approximately two years before the insurrection fared up in
Greece in December, some anarchists of the Platformist per
suasion embarrassingly identifed Greece as a country of low
social struggle, to back up their mechanistic theory that the
insurrectionist strain of anarchism only arises during lows, i. e.
it is a product of weakness. After December, other anarchists
who were convinced that workers were the only legitimate
revolutionary subj ect either minimized the importance of
the revolt because the working class as such did not partici
pate, or they skewed and entirely misunderstood the events
by emphasizing news of the protests by base unions and the
blockades by farmers, as though the irresponsible adventur
ism of molotov cocktails and frebombs was a phenomenon
that existed somehow outside the events.
On the other hand, insurrectionary anarchists surviving
in the most alienated of countries seemed to subsist entirely
on a diet of digital imagery and poorly translated poetic
communiques, snapshots infused with the smell of burning
shops but completely separated from their social context, as
though these anarchists somehow hungered even more than
the media to kill the revolt by spectacularizing it. And while
Breaking new ground
most Greek anarchists I know tend to share the insurrection
ary critique of the Left, or more accurately they simply take
it as self- evident, many Western insurrectionists would be
shocked to hear the widespread opinion that "insurrectionary
anarchism [referring to the Italian school] has had very little
infuence here." Which does not contradict the fact that ille
galist and individualist tendencies were passionately adopted
by many segments of the anarchist space in the '90s; however
this has manifested as an entirely different phenomenon from
the many blogs and papers in English that regurgitate "notes
from the global civil war, " little news clippings of violent ac
tions from here and there completely stripped of their social
context and thus of their political content. I understand the
need, in a pacifed setting, to glorify the very act of violent
resistance itself, but I' m afraid these comrades are digging
themselves into a hole every bit as deep as the one constituted
by the idealization of a class that sixty years ago willingly ad
opted all the characteristics of its enemy and dissolved itself.
What happened in Greece arose out of a specifc culture
and history of struggle. It is not an ideological tool to be used
for any faction nor a blueprint to be transported to another
country or context. It would be a shame for anarchists to con
vert the Greek rebellion into a dogmatic plank or to ignore it
because it does not confrm a preconceived ideology And as
much as I would like to, it would be wrong of me to use Greece
as a tool to urge greater cooperation and solidarity between
different antiauthoritarian currents, because all the infghting,
We are an I mage from the Future
the sharp criticisms regarding important questions, are a part
of the history of this insurrection, and the rebellion itself was
claimed to confrm or contradict people's idea of revolution.
The truth is that all these contradicting currents made
up the revolt, and a key characteristic of the revolt that the
State and media worked so hard to deny is that at times, in the
streets, the many people who were supposed to be different
and separate became indistinguishable. But without denying
any of the elements that participated, we can and should look
at the role they each played, what made them stronger, and
what made them weaker.
We are storytellers, not historians. Our j ob is to relate
these happenings to you, not to separate, to obj ectif, to en
grave these living stories and rob them of any connection to
the present moment. Just as the solidarity actions in other
countries lent more fre to the ongoing insurrection in Greece,
the exhilarating smell of smoke rose from Athens and spread
around the world. I cannot see it as disconnected that it was
also a hot winter in Sofa, Malmo, Oakland, and Guadelupe,
nor that anarchists around the world stepped up the struggle
after seeing what was going on in Greece.
Several months after December, I was at a small protest in
one of those northern social democratic countries where such
things as riots aren't meant to happen anymore. But when the
police attacked, even though there were only a hundred people
in the demo, they rioted, and when the police broke up the riot,
they dispersed throughout the city to take revenge by setting
afre symbols of wealth, property, and authority. The only
similarity between their situation and Greece was that in both
places people had the confdence to fght back. And that is an
element that no material conditions and no historical process
can give you. It may be easier to come by in some cultures than
in others but it is entirely yours to claim or disown.
Confdence played a major role in the Greek anarchist
practice in all the years before December. Anarchists had
enough confdence in their ideas to communicate them with
society, and enough confdence that their struggle was right
that they continued attacking the State and boldly upholding
an ethic of solidarity with all the oppressed and no compromise
with authority, even when they were the only ones doing so.
And in this way they won presence in their society, and
everyone, even if they disagreed, knew who the anarchists
were-the ones who fought against all authority, who stood
alongside the most marginalized members of society, the
ones who self-organized, and the ones who never acted like
politicians. This social connection was perhaps the greatest
foundation of the insurrection. Many anarchists insisted on
seeing society as distinct from the State. They participated in
all the social struggles, offering a diferent analysis than the
political parties and refusing to sugarcoat or hide their radi
cal ideas, even when this made communication more diffcult
in the short-term. And whenever there was a social problem
or important event or tragedy, they would meet and take the
initiative to respond, so that the government did not have a
monopoly on discourse while managing the problem. The an
archists created examples of uncompromising struggles, and
trusted that when people were ready they would choose to
adopt these examples as their own.
There are also many antisocial elements within the anar
chist space, and these play an important role as well, because
even though society is our most crucial ally, there are plenty of
reasons to hate it in its current form, and many people want to
drop out from it or stand outside of it. While most Greek an
archists I know look just like any other Greeks-they do not
differentiate themselves as anarchists in their mode of dress
there are also the anarchist punks and hippies and j unkies
and metalheads and goths. In other words, anarchism is not
a subculture, but it is present in nearly all the subcultures,
and in the mainstream culture as well. Anarchism needs to be
there for those who hate society for what it is not and those
who love it for what it could be.
An antisocial edge has also helped those parts of the anar
chist space carry out unpopular and shocking actions without
finching. Society is often conservative, and under capitalism
all its members are tied in to their own oppression. Anarchists
often have to clash with the reigning order, and this clash cre
ates inconveniences for all those who depend on that order to
get them through their miserable lives. Social anarchists who
are excessively populist will be unable to do this.
Although the Greek anarchists argue and fght with one
another, there is another side to this, harder to see from the
Breaking new ground
outside. They also have a habit of ignoring those they disagree
with, and this makes sense, because they do not have enough
in common to work together, and no need to try and change
one another. They are other people, doing their own thing,
and this difference does not entail a contradiction because
anarchists don't go marching to the same drummer.
Many anarchists, primarily in Protestant countries, set
themselves the primary activity of perfecting and purifing the
anarchist space, and they go about massacring ideological op
ponents, petty enemies, and perpetrators of bad manners with
all the righteousness of Crusaders. The personal is political;
however it is precisely because there is no clear line between in
side the movement and outside the movement that we should
not try to erect such a line by attacking the faws of our selves
and our allies with more enthusiasm than we attack the State.
What the rebellion in Greece showed once again is that
people do not need vanguards or political parties, that self
organization, direct action, and self-defense are second -nature
to everyone. The people who express their rage or illuminate
the targets of the struggle with fery actions far more extreme
than what the maj ority might consent to are not acting as a
vanguard because in a given moment, all the exploited and
dissatisfed members of society might take up these tactics
and go even further than yesterday's extremists.
But in this moment, the anarchists still have a crucial role
to play, and we must be confdent enough to play it. We have
to learn how to communicate and cooperate with society at a
354
We are an I mage from the Future
higher level, once we meet in the street. We have to keep the
institutional Left from recuperating the struggle without cre
ating divisions by j udging people in the street by the color of
the fag they carry. We have to point out new and more diffcult
targets as our power to attack increases, otherwise the revolt
will exhaust itself smashing banks and police stations without
ever becoming a revolution against capitalism and the State.
We have to contradict and ultimately silence the media as they
try to fabricate hollow explanations for the insurrection and
generate fear. We must have the faith in our imaginations to
suggest long- term answers to the problems of society and start
creating those answers as though we might actually win.
Part of the task of communication with society involves
identifying traditions and symbols in a particular society that
foster the ideas we want to communicate. One can't simply
take the Greek practice and put it to use in Great Britain. Ev
ery society has its archetypes of j ustifed violence and heroic
defance, but what exactly those are differs from one society to
the next. In a country like Great Britain, that prides itself on
the centuries-long stability and longevity of its government,
or one like the Netherlands that touts its political culture of
dialogue and compromise, this is a diffcult task. In the US
there is a deep and lively tradition of hatred for the govern
ment, but it is mostly found outside the Left. In Germany,
on the contrary, there is a diverse tradition of defance com
ing from within the Left, but it runs up against the popular
demand for public order.
One of the most powerful specifc strategies of counter
insurgency used by the State, which the anarchists will have
to overcome in Greece and anywhere else we rise up, is racism.
The natives and the immigrants, the whites and the blacks,
is one of the most effective divisions to hamstring society
because there are real cultural differences and thanks to im
perialism there is a history of antagonism as well. People from
both sides of the line will have to meet and learn to work to
gether to communicate with others, so as not to be separated
from society and cast as a scapegoat for the social problems,
or to be validated as part of national community and placed
unwittingly alongside one's mortal enemies.
I am afraid that if the Greek insurrection does not con
tinue to grow stronger, if it is defeated, the crucial moment
will have been its failure to extend effective solidarity to the
immigrants when the State and the fascists carried out their
major operation of ethnic cleansing in the summer. And this
failure was probably not due to a lack of response in the mo
ment it occurred-although many anarchists did pass up the
opportunity to participate in the immigrant riots-but due to
the fact that they had not prepared enough in advance, had
not identifed this as a key strategic weakness and worked to
improve their connection with the immigrants, had not done
more to counteract the racism that was being instilled from
above by spreading their anti- racist analysis throughout so
ciety, and had not made more personal contacts so that when
the protests and riots started, they could be instantly notifed
about what was happening like they were with the death of
Alexis. Without these close contacts, the strong and immedi
ate mobilization that occurred after Alexis' death could sim
ply not occur in solidarity with the immigrants, and in fact
most Athens anarchists found out about the immigrant riots
in June through the media or because they saw the fres by
chance. Even though they had met intimately in the streets
and occupations in December, they had not held on to these
contacts so that when the immigrants had an emergency, they
could call their friends the anarchists.
It must also be said that the immigrants were not passive
victims, and on the whole they chose the search for a better
quality of life rather than the struggle for a better reality. In
accepting the reality of capitalism and only trying to improve
their position within it, the maj ority of immigrants have also
accepted the whims, machinations, and violence of capitalism
that will always be directed against them, no matter what part
of the world they live in or how much money they make.
The second maj or shortfall, in my opinion, is the disil
lusionment felt by many youth after the rush of December
ended and the many blackmails of capitalism returned to
dominate their lives. People who already had a deep anarchist
understanding and an experience in the struggle were theo
retically and emotionally equipped to deal with the low. They
knew that reaction and repression litter the road to revolution
and they could take strength from December without expect
ing the fght to be over in j ust a month. But the apolitical
Breaking new ground
people, most of them very young, had never imagined an i n
surrection before, and it changed their lives, but after i t ended
the depression was profound because their already hopeless
lives became even more miserable after seeing that another
world was possible and having it slip between their fngers
and retreat to an unimaginable distance. The experienced
anarchists could have preserved some of the enthusiasm of
December by sharing their long- term understanding of the
struggle with the new generation and making more efforts to
invite the newcomers into the autonomous spaces where the
fames of insurrection burn a little brighter.
Most of my Greek comrades disagree with this point, and
they clearly understand the situation better. They point out
that this ecstatic wave of revolt and then the subsequent disil
lusionment was something they all went through, with the
student movements of each generation, in ' 9 1 , '99, and so forth.
The intensity of the struggle showed them what was possible,
and the doldrums that followed taught them that the struggle
was long and hard. And while I agree that learning to survive
profound disappointment is essential to being a revolutionary,
I think that more young people would hold on to the courage
to hope if they weren't so alone, if more experienced radicals
took them under their wings and actively invited them to
participate in existing initiatives and structures, precisely to
break out of this timeless cycle of resistance and repression;
to seize on the delirious momentum of the revolt and help the
new generation see that things don't have to go back to normal
We are an I mage from the Future
if they don't let them. After all, after December many Greek
anarchists concluded that what was lacking was not popular
consciousness but more opportunities for new people to get
involved, for the anarchists and the other people to continue
meeting like they met in the streets.
The necessity to overcome the isolation which the State
ceaselessly works to impose requires a Herculean j ourney to
communicate with society and all its potentially rebellious
parts. This communication can take myriad forms, from
fyers, to protests, to exemplary and violent attacks. All the
different types of antiauthoritarians can make their contribu
tion. The revolt in Greece, that continues today, has been built
by students, immigrants, theorists, fghters, terrorists, drop
outs, activists, kids, grandparents, artists, ascetics, j ournalists,
small store owners, academics, feminists, machos, drunkards,
straight- edgers, soldiers, and union organizers. The revolt has
been attacked by politicians, fascists, cops, left wing party ac
tivists, j ournalists, the media, small store owners, academics,
capitalists, bureaucrats, the military, and labor unions.
Though all the participation in the revolt should be val
ued, not all is equal. By analyzing the attempts to recuperate
the revolt and turn it into a harmless thing, we can understand
the meaning of the specifc elements. SYRI ZA, the only po
litical party to participate in the street protests in December,
was called on to denounce its actions j ust before the elections.
Predictably, they said that the students were j ustifed in their
cause. What they denounced was the violence. They blamed
1 50 extremists for exploiting December and turning it into
something subversive.
In the Left's history of December, the revolt was only
about anger over a police shooting, and the desperation of
youth whose future was threatened by an economic crisis. The
history of the struggle and the depth of its negation are cen
sored. Its refusal to make demands is willfully misinterpreted
as a lack of political analysis. The violence was its ugly side,
but it also had a positive side, praised by many parts of the far
Left, especially SYRIZA. These include the creation of parks,
the peaceful protests, actions and occupations by artists, even
the foundation of new social centers. This politically correct
version of December attempts to erase the centrality of the
Polytechnic occupation and everything it symbolizes: the con
tinuation of the civil war despite the transition to democracy,
uncompromising rebellion against the entire system, constant
struggle against the police and the total destruction of corpo
rate stores, the mixing of youth and adults, immigrants and
Greeks, anarchists and non-political people. If there were good
insurgents and bad insurgents, those described by this symbol,
whether they were at the Polytechnic or anywhere else, were
undeniably the bad insurgents, and that is precisely why for
me they constitute the most important element of the revolt,
because they are the only element the State fnds indigestible.
The artistic actions, the parties, the occupation of the
National Opera, the social centers, the peaceful protests:
these elements should not be censored or derided as the
weak and reformist side of the insurrection, because they
represent the widening of the struggle to the point that it
could include anyone who chose to come out on the streets.
But it is the uncompromising and violent elements that give
the softer elements their meaning, their ability to constitute
an attack on the system. Dividing the one from the other is
precisely what the State has tried to do in order to defeat the
continuing insurrection.
The insurrection is the meeting of society at the bar
ricades assembled from the smashed remains of everything
that isolates us. For me it is a vital concept in the anarchist
vision of revolution, and it is something that we must prepare
the ground for and fertilize at every moment, even and espe
cially when it seems like the wrong moment. Just as the anar
chists of Spain would never have been able to resist Franco's
coup and create space for a revolution if the pitolers had not
"irresponsibly" embarked on a course of armed struggle a
decade earlier, I think the anarchists in Greece facilitated a
social insurrection when they wed their uncompromising and
illegal approaches with recognition of the importance of com
municating with society, in the years before December 2008.
The ability to be antisocial allowed them to adopt a course
Greek society was not ready for, and the need to be social
brought them back to the people who would eventually rise
up, because the insurrection is a function of society and not of
a political movement, as important as those movements may
be in the development of necessary social characteristics.
Breaking new ground
The anarchist participation i n those movements, because
it was both critical and enthusiastic, won a greater visibility
for anarchists and their ideas. Simultaneously, the fact that the
anarchists had never succeeded in consolidating as a single
movement seems to have helped them immensely to diversify
and spread and include a greater portion of society. And in
December, the lack of a single program and the diversity of
strategies made the task of police repression impossible.
What the rebellion in Greece shows, as do the rebellions
in Kabylia, Oaxaca, and China, is that although insurrec
tion becomes second nature to everyone and vanguards can
only get in the way, the insurrection does not spontaneously
provide the people with what they need in order to go from
insurrection to revolution. We still have to fnd the answers
to certain questions, and those of us who never go back to
normality, those of us who keep dreaming of freedom, need to
suggest and deploy these answers when the moment comes.
Once we've burned everything, how do we reveal and attack
the social relationships that underpin capitalism and the
State? What structures and infrastructure can we target that
will weaken the counterinsurgency without putting society
in a passive disaster mode, waiting to be rescued? How do
we help other people believe in another world they would be
willing to fght for, and to spread visions of stateless, com
munal societies that begin now? How do we escalate to revo
lutionary civil war-that is to say a two-sided war rather than
We are an I mage from the Future
the one- sided war waged against us permanently-without
losing social support and participation?
These questions were not answered in Greece, and that
is why their insurrection is still an insurrection and not a
revolution. Spontaneity is a crucial element without which the
insurrection would not exist, but spontaneity is not a God that
will deliver us from Egypt if we walk through this desert for
long enough. The anarchists, doing what they always do, miss
strategic opportunities that have previously not been possible.
The apolitical people, exercising secret desires, will have their
spirits crushed when a temporary return of order prevents
them from being the selves they only just discovered, and with
the help of this demoralization the temporary return of order
will win the appearance of being permanent.
But order is never permanent. Although we may never
achieve the world we want, the very dynamics of control and
rebellion ensure that we will never lose and the State will nev
er win. Either we will destroy it, or we will continue fghting
against it and troubling its pathological dreams forever. Nature
itself is chaotic, making total control impossible. We may not
have ultimate defeats and they may not have ultimate victories,
but there are steps forward and steps backward. It remains to
be seen whether Greek society holds onto the ground it won
in December, but it is certain that the anarchists in Greece
strengthened themselves for the battles to come. Learning
from their experiences, the rest of us can, too.
Nothi ng Changed, Everythi ng i s the Di f
ferent
Tasos Sagris from Void Network
It's Autumn 2009, the middle of September, in the daytime.
I walk in the streets of Athens from Monastiraki, the fea
market, down from Acropolis, up to Exarchia, through the
luxury market area, past Parliament, the business district, the
offces, government buildings, bars, cinemas, and hotels.
Downtown Athens.
I pass through buildings that burned down completely
during the December riots, huge multi- foor corner build
ings, still smelling of fre and rage: silent monuments of an
outcry, remains of a thunderbolt that came from the sky and
hit the city like a wild nightmare. The city breathes hard work,
blackmail, exhaustion, obligation, exploitation, and cheap
amusements. Museums, galleries, stadiums, and clubs inhale
the fears, misery, and rage and turn them into a fake smile.
Merry ensis and a Happy New Fear
-Graffti remaining on the wall from last Christmas
NOTHI NG CHANGED
This ancient city continued her way to normality with all her
fears and her cheap excuses, walking through this century like
a slave girl in a parade, like a chained animal in a global circus,
like you and I squandering our last and only lifetimes in a
luxury mall or near the pool, drinking an expensive cocktail
with our last euros, pretending to be the heroes of a Holly
wood movie.
So many cars burned, but the streets are still full of them,
going everywhere like empty private countries moving in the
city's veins and feeding the crisis. More than 500 shops were
turned into debris and ashes, but in this city the market still
works like an amusement park in th middle of a vast cemetery.
The banks of all the maj or cities in Greece were smashed and
burned, but people are still struggling with their clocks and
their suspensions to pay back huge loans and high taxes. The
workers' strike was successful, but human beings still spend
their lives in offces, keeping a mechanism that leads life on
earth towards extinction in good working order. All the uni
versities were squatted for a month, but the students are still
taking exams and dreaming of good careers, good money and
two weeks of crazy holidays somewhere away from here.
Nothing changed: the clock of this world rings us out of
sleep at 6:30 in the morning here same as anywhere else. We
have to run to survive, we have to obey to stay out of prison,
we have to forget our dreams to stay employed, we have to buy
Breaki ng new ground
our lives from the supermarket and pay for the water we drink
and the air we breathe and the place we put our bed to sleep.
Nothing changed . . . The government announces elec
tions and the Parliament is voting on our future; the politi
cians speak on TV every afternoon and plan our opinions; the
policemen put immigrants without papers into concentration
camps and small paramilitary groips of Nazis go around
kicking Arabs and Balkan people out of the squares. People
go around in the streets like ghosts without lives of their own,
and kids spend their time in front of computer screens in dis
mal internet shops and petit-bourgeois apartments.
The same moves, the same decisions, the same confusion,
the same doubts, the same wishes, the same answers, the same
payments, the same walks, the same bars, the same clothes
and shoes and makeup, the same songs and flms and televi
sion programs, the same apologies, the same timetables. The
production goes on and consumption consumes our days; the
shops sell dreams that turn every night into individualized
fears and collective social apathy.
Society sleeps in the night of oblivion. People try to fnd a
way to live, or else to leave, to get away from here. Paradise still
waits after death, somewhere beyond our lifetimes. Nothing
has changed.
Alexis is still lying dead on that pedestrian street corner
in Exarchia.
Nothing Changed,
but
We are an I mage from the Future
. . . everything is Different.
To express our rage with words or gestures is useless, ri
diculous or dangerous, mindless or false common sense. Only
the cold- blooded animals are poisonous.
EVERYTHI NG I S DI FFERENT
More than 1 00,000 people took part in the insurrection of
December 2008 and many more were infuenced by those
days. They wait in the veins of this society, ready to explode at
any moment. Perhaps they can't force the body of society in a
specifc direction, but when 1 00,000 cells explode in the veins
of the social body, the body collapses on its knees, like the
Greek state during December 2008. The bureaucrats of the
State know this, and the Business Administration does too.
There are thousands of young girls and boys walking the
streets of this country who, j ust a few months ago, encircled
the police stations of their neighborhoods and threw stones
at them, burned the local banks, and refused to go to school
or work for weeks.
There are hundreds of workers who forced out the syndi
calists who ruled the General Workers Union and assembled
in their offces. There are hundreds of thousands of unem
ployed people who hate the system, and lazy kids who hate
working, and millions of dissatisfed producers and consum
ers of a life that offers nothing.
All these lonely people discovered their dignity during
the insurrection, experiencing their personal and collective
power to explode as the cities and villages caught fre and
their horizons opened up beyond the white fog of teargas.
Those horizons remained open night after night, and still stay
open so long as the memory of the insurrection is a wound in
your body and in the body of society.
Through our open wounds, we are observing the hori
zons of our future. We are an image from the future.
There are thousands and thousands of people who don't
trust any government and hate the banks and the corpora
tions. The insurrection helped millions of people across the
world to stop, to see their lives with the clarity of a fashback,
shifting their way of thinking for a moment and observing
this world naked. The fairy tale revealed its ugliest face and
the beautiful smiles of the journalists and politicians froze,
unable to continue the narration that keeps the populace in
deep sleep.
We stay awake in the deep night of social apathy. Around
us millions of people continue sleeping, but the dreams are
turning into nightmares that make them sweat as their hearts
race and they weep silent teardrops that might wake them at
any moment.
There are millions of people who don't trust any offcial
ideology or academic authority or any political leadership,
who don't vote for any legal organization, who mistrust rich
philanthropists. The people of our times don't believe in any
universal truth or any specifc lifestyle, any way of life or
spiritual value system, any political agenda. They don't read
serious political or philosophical books or the announcements
of the activists or even the free press except when they are in
the metro for ffteen minutes. They don't hear the right wing
president when he speaks, or the speeches of the Communist
Party; they want to go to a party, get drunk, fnd a boyfriend,
go to the back of the garden and make love in the moonlight.
NOTHI NG CHANGED, BUT EVERYTHI NG IS DI FFERENT
Hundreds of squatted social centers and radical student
groups function in the universities, the schools and in the
streets of all Europe. Social initiatives, affnity groups, groups
of friends, political gangs, and underground meeting points
in the streets and in squatted buildings bring the heat of their
action into the soft belly of the regime.
Arson attacks, riots, demonstrations, free festivals and
distribution of analysis and propaganda are organized every
week, day after day, by common people. These actions send
signals to the society that there are targets, institutions to
mistrust, places to avoid, ways that have to change, places and
relations of enslavement, places and relations of emancipa
tion, points of no return.
Nobody trusts the government. Everyone knows that
capitalism is destroying the planet, turning life into com
modities, humanity into a destructive mechanism, suppress
ing creativity, love, fantasy, turning basic needs into a constant
problem, offering none of the happiness promised to the ex
Soviet Bloc countries.
Breaking new ground
Neo-Liberalism is dying. Everything is different.
We are here in the highways and in the squares, out in
the streets, downtown in Exarchia and in the city center, still
hanging around on the corner where Alexis liked to meet his
friends. A whole new generation of people is around-you
make so many new friends during an insurrection: so many
new comrades to decide their own future and offer their
new directions.
Everything is different. Week after week there are wild
demonstrations for Freedom of Public Space from the State,
Freedom of Immigrants from Borders, Freedom of All Pris
oners from the causes of Imprisonment, Freedom for All
Workers from their imprisoned lives. These demonstrations
are traveling on the body of the city searching for the wild
riots of the future, preparing with their chants the spirit of ac
tive negation, the fre of radical change, the hope for a general
social uprising.
People are beginning to refect again on what general so
cial revolt will look like. It will look like December 2008, and
we are here and waiting.
Now we are here and waiting: for society to digest the
smoke of the burned luxuries, to express openly its distrust
of state institutions and make directions and decisions that
will appear on the social horizon for the frst time. Hundreds
upon hundreds of small pamphlets of radical analysis are dis
tributed week after week by amateur intellectuals preparing
the end of the classical Western way of thinking. Thousands
362
We are an I mage from the Future
of posters hang in the streets of each neighborhood, by the
local squats and social centers, sending a signal to the petit
bourgeoisie that the days of obedience, work, consumerism,
and individualism are coming to an end. Thousands of short
flms and paragraphs of critical thought utilize the internet to
transmit the real stories of our lives, the real news of our ac
tions, to connect the moments in order to produce the myths
and dreams of coming insurrections.
The "important" people of this world try to persuade us
that all these are not important. Anyway, they say, all these
underground books and pamphlets are published by non
existent publishers, the short videos on the internet are
just childish games for kids and naIve romantics, the radi
cal blogs are not effcient, the squats are places for criminal
activity, and the youth cultures are the commodities of the
near future. Anyway, they say, nothing changed: the television
doesn't speak about "all these" anymore except when a "ter
rorist" action occurs, the demonstrations are j ust some small
riots around Exarchia. All that happened in December was
a childish revolt over the accidental death of a child, which
a few isolated anarchists took advantage of to express their
nihilism, they say.
AT THE SAME TI ME
"
IT'S MI DNI GHT I N EUROPE!'
There is a feeling of the end of an era all across Europe
and amazing phenomenons of stupidity are happening in
the heads of postmodern thinkers as postmodernism dies.
Nobody controls the spirit of the age, nobody can offer solid
analysis about what is happening around us, no one can pre
dict what this world will look like in ffty years. The young
boys and girls smile silently behind their black masks near the
barricades, imagining a world with no obligations.
Everything is different. Maybe the elites, the rich, the
famous and "important" people act like nothing changed,
but nothing is normal anymore and no one has the authority
to speak in the name of the people. The people express more
mistrust towards the regime than ever, and perhaps they are
ready to speak for themselves in such a way that no socio
logist or j ournalist will be capable of understanding their
language.
In the night, everywhere, the people speak about the
general failure; in the bottom of their hearts, they know that
everything has to change, that many things have to burn to
ashes for humanity to continue its way in space and time.
I walk around in Exarchia. I pass through the squatted
self- organized park, where old people from the neighborhood
stay in the shade of trees and speak with young girls about
last night's police attack on the area. A few meters away, at
the place Alexis was shot, there is a marble monument with
fowers and posters all around the walls, and a lit candle . . . .
It's early in the afternoon; some boys and girls stand around
talking. People from a new squat give me a 32- page pamphlet
analyzing everyday racism on a molecular social scale; on the
other side of the pedestrian street, I see two people from an
underground post-rock band that I know from free festivals
talking with people from a DIY drum 'n bass collective.
No one will propagate a new way of life with words alone,
there are no theories that can describe our passions. Maybe
we are the ones who will take back life in our hands from capi
talism and aristocracy. Maybe we will be shot in the streets of
our cities, like Alexis. There is no plan, or even a specifc goal,
or a single achievement we are fghting for. There are no fu
turistic visions of paradise inside the heads of the people, not
even a wish to be in such a place, except perhaps for short
term expensive holidays. We fght to survive, to maintain our
dignity, humanity, and critical thinking from one day to the
next; we fght off the businessmen, politicians, armies, and
kings of this world as they attempt to steal our future and
turn it into coins-day after day after day. We are the survi
vors of humanity in a war with our most pathetic selves .
We are lost in the darkness of a world in which we are
strangers, foreigners, customers, guests, separate individuals,
or we are j ust slaves that share some small personal salary
to survive. We are survivors in the desert. When we meet, we
meet in void, in void we live, the void we share. When we de
cide to attack, our attack is like a thunder that comes from
outer space and breaks the night of social apathy. We are wait
ing, waiting for the proper moment . . . .
Nothing will stay like i t was.
We Are an Image from The Future.
Breaki ng new ground
364
We are an I mage from the Future
2
1 -2. The self-organi zed park in Exarchi a, fift meters from where
Alexis was murdered. Thousands parrti ci pated in the creati on of the
park and the reclamation of publ i c space.
3. Squat i n Exarchi a. Occupied by the Assembl y of the Polymorphi c
Anarchist Movement.
4. The State tried and fai l ed to shut older squats l i ke Vi l l a Amal i as that
has been around for over twent years.
5. Pati si on 61 Squat i s the former resi dence of Maria Kal l as. It was
3 5
4
6
occupied after December as an extensi on of the Assembly of the
Athens School of Economi cs.
6. Nosotros Free Soci al Space, started five years ago by Void Network
and Antiauthoritarian Current i n Exarchi a.
7
8
7. Neighborhood assembl i es and celebrations, playgrounds, and the
self-organi zation of publ i c space is viewed as a di rect atack against
the State and capital i sm, sowing seeds of freedom and equal it.
8. Theater in the park.
9. Proper use of public space, Exarchi a.
1 0
9
11
Breaki ng new ground
, .' -
` .
J t"
", ,
.
1
1 3
1 0. Communi t garden.
11 . Scene from one of the free l essons / workshops for i mmigrants
and students oranized after December.
1 2-1 3. Scenes from the racist pogrom of 2009. Pol ice rounded up
3, 000 i mmi grants without papers i nto concentration camps.
We are an I mage from the Future
1 4
1 5
1 4-1 5. Assembl i es of leftists and anarchists organized l arge
demonstrations and actions across Greece as an answer to the
State's counter-i nsurrection effors, the corporate medi a's coverage,
and the parami l itary violence condoned by pol ice.
1 6. More than 1 0, 000 people attended the 1 4th Annual Anti - Raci st
Festival featuring concerts, publ i c tal ks, and great food from most
ethni c groups i n Greece.
17. The 5th Annual Pride Parade i n Athens drew over 7, 000 peopl e,
i ncl udi ng many leftists and anarchists.
17
1 6
1 8. Scene from the 1 9th Annual I ndi e Free Festival against pol ice
presence i n Exarchi a, 8, 000 attend.
1 9. Bfest: A four-day- I ong event that consists of an internati onal
anarchist conference, concers, and raves. 30, 000 peopl e attend.
1 8
1 9
20
21
20. Nazis and pol i ce col l aborating agai nst their common enemies
leftists, anarchi sts, and i mmigrants.
21 -23. Hundreds of arson attacks and attacks on government
bui l di ngs, lUxury shops, and corporate headquarters were camed
out i n the year fol l owi ng December, 2008.
24. The Stock Exchange after an attack by the group Revolutionar
Strugle.
23
Breaki ng new ground
22
25. Outside the American Embassy, 60, 000 demonstrators
partici pate i n the 39th anniversary of the 1 973 Polytechni c revolt on
November 17, 2009. Anarchi sts popul ated three bl ocks, in a group
total i ng 1 0, 000.
24
25
We are an I mage from the Future
Gl ossary
anarchist space-anarhikos horos, the anarchist space, is the most
common way to refer to what we in the English-speaking world would
call the anarchist movement or anarchist struggle. The distinction
acknowledges that there is no single body or direction chosen by the
anarchists. Rather, they occupy a non - homogenous part of the political
terrain, just as they spread out spatially within their cities, with the
anarcho-junkies hanging out in that square, the nihilists hanging out
on this corner, the libertarians hanging out in that bar, the hippies
hanging out in that park, the Situationists hanging out in that squat,
the classical anarcho-communists in that cafe and the insurrectionists
in this one. They meet and communicate without coming to agreement,
or they keep their distance from one another, but if the police ever
invade their turf, they band together to fght back.
anarchists, autonomists, and libertarians (oh my!)-Many, but not
all, Greek anti authoritarians use these terms in the following way.
Anarchists are those who identif themselves with the specifc
anarchist tradition, going back to (but by no means limited to
Bakunin), even though the major infuences probably come from the
events of May ' 68, as well as other more recent manifestations of new
and old theories and struggles. The autonomists are not necessarily
dissident Marxists as they are in other countries, but perhaps
dissiden anarchists who favor a materialist analysis. The libertarians
focus on the idea of freedom, philosophically and culturally. All of
these currents are grouped together as antiauthoritarians, although
sometimes the term "antiauthoritarian" is used in contrast to
"anarchist, " to refer to those antiauthoritarians who do not
specifcally identify themselves as anarchists. These are all crass
and clumsy generalizations, but hopefully they can help the foreign
reader untangle all the varied terms.
AK-Alpha Kappa, or Antiauthoritarian Current (most commonly
mistranslated as Antiauthoritarian Movement) an anarchist
organization with sections in several cities, that often works with the
extra-parliamentary Left.
ASOE-The University of Economics and Business in Athens, located
on Patision Ave. about a ten minute walk north of the Polytechnic
and Exarchia.
asylum-In recognition of the important role the students played
in overthrowing the dictatorship and the heavy repression that
was visited upon them, an important legal principle of the new
democratic government, written into the constitution, was that
any university campus was considered a place of asylum, and the
police could not enter there. Due to Plan Bolonya, the neoliberal
restructuring of higher education being forced on all the member
states of the European Union, the Greek government must abolish
the asylum. In 2007, the Greek government voted to limit asylum, so
that police could enter a campus at the invitation of the university
president. In practice, asylum still exists thanks to the proximity
of the university administrators to the everyday force of the social
movements created by the students, who would take any breach of
the asylum as a declaration of war and respond accordingly.
base union-A common term used by Greek antiauthoritarians to denote
a grassroots workers union that acts as a vehicle for the coordination
of information, action, and protest by workers, as distinct from the
institutional labor unions that act as permanent governing bodies
for the workers, and collaborate with the political parties and the
General Confederation of Workers.
Delta Force-The name given, apparently without any sense of irony,
to the new special police force created in Athens in March. They
travel in groups from six to ffty, riding two to a motorbike. They
are intended to serve as a rapid response team to carry out arrests
against anarchists. The Force recruits the most fascist, brutal, and
hooliganistic elements of all the different police sections.
Eleftheros Typos-"Free Press:' Unfortunately, this is both the name
of the anarchist publisher founded in 1 976, and the major right
wing newspaper later bought by the elite family that was also the
driving force behind the Athens Olympics. Neither of these are to be
confused with Eleftherotipia, the third largest newspaper in Greece,
and staunchly leftist, known for publishing the communiques of 1 7
November and even running articles sympathetic to the anarchists
or the autonomy of Exarchia.
gas canister bomba small homemade bomb frequently used in
attacks claimed by small anarchist groups, this bomb basically entails
a group of exploding camping gas canister. The damage produced is
mostly symbolic, and is unlikely to produce injuries.
General Confederation of Greek Workers-The GSEE, an
organization that brings together all the major labor unions, and has
its central offces in Athens on Patision Ave., between Polytechnic and
ASOEE. It is alternatively translated as the General Confederation
of Labour of Greece.
general strike-In Greece, nationwide general strikes organized by
the GSEE typically occur every several months, lasting for a single
day and serving above all as a protest and a platform to demonstrate
the clout of the major unions and the political parties that have
retained them.
Golden Dawn-A long-standing and formerly illegal neonazi organization
that has gained some popularity in Greece over the last years. The
government allowed them to participate in the 2009 national elections,
in which they gathered 1 7,000 votes throughout Greece.
Erou-A posh shopping street leading down from Syntagma Square.
Exarchia-A countercultural and rebellious neighborhood of central
Athens that has long been a stronghold of the anarchists. At different
Gl ossar
times over the last decades, the neighborhood has been either a
relatively autonomous zone in terms of a lack of police presence or
it has been under armed police occupation. (A common alternative
spelling, which adheres to the characters used in the Greek alphabet
rather than to the pronunciation, is "Exarheia.")
KKE-The Communist Party of Greece, and the last real Communist
Party of all Europe, still defending Stalinism as a benefcial period
in Russian society and spreading conservative ideas "to the masses."
They were once a major force in controlling the workers' struggles,
but now hold only a small number of seats in Parliament. Incidentally,
Communist refers to Party members or the Party collectively, whereas
communist refers to the people who identify with that political
position and tradition without necessarily being Party members. In
fact, before and during the civil war, many communists were killed
by the Communists.
Kolonaki-A wealthy neighborhood of central Athens, full of luxury
boutiques and expensive apartments, just a few minutes walk from
Exarchia, in one direction, or Syntagma, in the other.
Konstantina Kuneva-A Bulgarian migrant who led a base union of
precarious cleaning workers, and was attacked for her organizing
activity on 23 December. "Kouneva," a frequent alternative spelling,
is a transliteration of her name rendered in Greek.
koukoulofori-"Hooded ones," the term used by the Greek media and
State to dismissively describe the anarchists without giving them a
political content. The singular is koukouloforos.A creative alternative
translation that gives a good sense of the connotation of the word is
"masketeer."The earlier terms were "provocateurs" and then "known
unknowns."
LAOS-An extreme right political party with growing visibility
in Greece, with a Le Pen- style fascism based on a popularistic
369
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We are an I mage from the Future
xenophobia and emphasis on religion and family.
Le Pen-An infuential French politician and former member of the
Foreign Legion, Jean- Marie Le Pen has been instrumental in
developing the new European cryptofascism on the rise since the
'80s. His antisemitism, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, and
connections to right wing paramilitary groups hide behind a populist
and nationalist conservatism.
Maria Kallas-A famous Greek opera singer, who was said to live in the
large building on Patision Avenue, Athens, occupied by anarchists in
March 2009.
MAT-The hated Greek riot police. These "Sections of Direct Order"
were created by PASOK in the early '80s to confront the violence of
the early Greek Black Bloc and the wildcat strikes of those times.
metapolitefSi-The period of political transition during the ' 70s, from
the dictatorship to the democratic government.
ND-Nea Demokratia or New Democracy, the conservative political
party in power at the time of the December insurrections and the
following months. During those times it had been particularly
scandal-wracked and governed with a majority of only one
representative in Parliament.
Nomiki-The Law University, located on the other side of Akadimias
Ave. from Exarchia, relatively close to Kolonaki and Syntagma.
Omonia-A major square in central Athens, close to the Polytechnic and
about a ffteen minute walk from Syntagma. The neighborhood on
one side of Omonia has become well known as an immigrant ghetto.
Panepistimio-The area of the University Rectorate, halfway between
Omonia and Syntagma, next to Nomiki, and j ust below Exarchia.
This is a common starting point for demonstrations, which typically
march to Omonia and turn around to go to Syntagma, one street
farther down from Panepistimio.
PAOK-a football hooligan club with a strong presence throughout
Greece, and distinct antifascist and antiauthoritarian tendencies.
Together with AEK from Athens, Asteras Exarchion (the amateur
team of Exarchia) and some other football teams in the countryside
they galvanize many hundreds of anarchists and antifascist Greek
hooligans (whose participation in the riots of Genoa achieved
international visibility). In contrast to other European countries
Greek anarchists and antifascists refuse to abandon the football
stadiums and offer them to neo- nazis following the false analysis that
"the hooligans are not serious political fghters."
PASOK-The Socialist Party of Greece, one of the two largest political
parties, with a social democratic line similar to SPD in Germany.
Polytechnic-The Polytechnic University of Athens, located in the
center of the city on Patision Avenue close to Omonia, and alongside
Exarchia, and a place of great symbolic importance for its central
role in the major riots and insurrections from November 1 973 to
December 2008.
Popular Revolutionary Struggle-(ELA) A large anarcho-autonomist
armed group active in the ' 70s, '80s, and '90s. Some of their
members were arrested in the early 'OOs. Unlike their more famous
contemporaries, 1 7 November, they carried out no assassinations.
Revolutionary Struggle-An extreme Left armed struggle group that
appeared in 2003. Their most spectacular action was a 2007 rocket
attack against the US Embassy.
Sect of Revolutionaries-An antiauthoritarian armed group that
became active after December.
17 November-A leftist urban guerrilla group responsible for a number
of political assassinations and other attacks, active in the '70s, ' 80s,
and '90s. Their name is a reference to a major date in the insurrection
against the dictatorship in 1 973. Several of their members were
arrested in the early 'OOs.
Stoumari-The street that runs alongside the Polytechnic, going
towards Exarchia Square. There are many major computer stores on
this street that were completely burned in December.
Syntagma-The square that stands before the Greek Parliament, the
destination for many protest marches, and a site of many major street
battles.
SYRIZA-A small party of the European Social Forum that unites
many leftist organizations, also known as the pink communists or
Euro communists, and the only parliamentary party to participate
in the December protests, alongside many tiny Marxist-Leninist,
Trotskyist, and Maoist parties. They were all denounced by the KKE
for aiding the protestors, and denounced by the protestors for trying
to manipulate and represent the struggle. Their bid to capitalize on
the youth demographic in the European Parliament elections in June
failed wonderfully, as few people who participated in the insurrection
went to the polls and SYRIZA received few Yotes.
Photo Credits
Photo Credits
Photo Journals edited by:
Void Optical Art Laboratory [History Archives]
(voidnetwork. blogspot.com)
Kostas Tsironis : 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 , 92, 93,
376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 38 1 , 382
Elen Gri
g
oriadou : 1 78, 1 79, 1 80, 1 81 , 1 82, 1 83, 2 1 0 p. lO,
2 1 2 p. l9, 373, 374, 375
An
g
elos Tzortzinis : 1 34, 1 35, 1 36, 1 37, 1 38, 1 39, 1 40, 1 42, 1 371
1 43, 383, 384
All other photos used by Void Network were sourced
from web sites practicing an open publishing or Creative
Commons license. We would like to thank all the anonymous
photographers for their capturing and sharing of history. If
any copyrighted photos were used by mistake, Void sincerely
apologizes. Please get in touch to have them credited in future
editions.
December 6 and 7, 2009. Over 1 00, 000 people demonstrate and riot on the anniversary of Alexis's murder
and the first days of the i nsurrecti on. Nothi ng i s over . . . Everythi ng conti nues.
We saw the future . . . and it comes in fames.